Coming Home Pt. 1 // Invitation to Return

Discover the life-changing message of the prodigal son parable and how it reveals God's incredible love for you. This powerful Bible story shows us how we all wander from God's love in both obvious and subtle ways, searching for security, significance, and belonging in the wrong places. Learn about the two types of spiritual lostness represented by the younger son's rebellion and the older brother's religious distance. Many Christians today struggle with older brother syndrome—doing good things while missing genuine intimacy with God. Explore practical ways to come home to the Father's love through prayer, fasting, and spiritual practices that create holy hunger. This message addresses common struggles like fear of missing out, people-pleasing, performance-based Christianity, and spiritual dryness. Perfect for anyone seeking deeper relationship with God, understanding God's grace, or looking for spiritual renewal in the new year. Topics covered include biblical parables, Christian living, spiritual growth, God's love, repentance, forgiveness, prayer life, fasting, spiritual disciplines, and finding purpose in faith. Whether you're dealing with obvious sin or subtle spiritual distance, discover how the Father is waiting with open arms for your return. Learn to recognize where you might be seeking fulfillment outside God's love and how to develop practices that draw you closer to Him. This encouraging message reminds us that coming home to God is not about earning His favor but simply saying "Father I need You and I want You."

This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

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Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. Church of the Lookout is an older Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at thelookout.church. Hey, good to see you guys. Welcome to the lookout. If you're a guest with us, like Gary said, we're so excited to have you here because as we're starting the year. And I know that a lot of times, beginning of January, as we're coming into beginning of the year, this is a time you're probably maybe you're checking out new churches, or you're like, man, I should really, I really want to get my life right with God this year. So this is a good place for you to be. Thank you for coming here today. And uh and for the rest of you, it's been a couple weeks since we've met. It is uh it is our first gathering of the year, so happy new year. Thank you. And thank you for that enthusiastic response. Um, obviously, it's a time for, you know, coming into January. I for me, I love this time actually, because it's a time, it's a natural time of reset, recalibration, realignment uh for the year ahead. And uh and God knows we all need it, right? After December, we're all coming in this morning, overflowing with more than praise, right? We're overflowing with cheese, all right? We're overflowing with all kinds of things that we need to detox from our bodies, just cheese and bad decisions, right? Um, and so this is a good place to be. It's a good time to reset. And I and actually think, I believe praying into um today and even for the next few weeks, it's to me, it's more than kind of the the normal January, New Year's resolution things. I I honestly believe um that we're standing at the threshold of something exciting and new for the for the year ahead. I think I feel like we're standing at an open door and some new invitations from God uh for us for the year ahead. And and my deepest prayer is that even now our faith would begin to rise for more than what last year held, um, but we begin to come and assemble and and and be together and as a church, just grow in expectation for all that God wants to do. All right. And so if if if you are newer, I just want to bring you into what we often uh speak from the stage and what we've what we declare is kind of our vision, our mission statement. We're gonna put this on the screen. I just want to read this for you, and this is something to reorient ourselves around. But the way we say it is our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Every word in that was crafted intentionally, every word in that means something to us that when we're gathering here, what we're really doing is we're putting our eyes on the person of Jesus and who he is. And then aligning our lives around that. And we're always asking this question: what does it look like to align our lives, everyday lives, around his presence, actually abiding with him every day of our lives and listening for his voice and realizing that he's not somewhere else. He is here, he's closer than our very next breath, he's closer than the skin that clothes our bodies. He is closer than we would even know. And so we're seeking to live that as a reality. We're also seeking to grow in his family, that we're coming here, we're not a crowd, we're a covenant community. At least that's what we're called to be. That the body of Christ is the beautiful vision of Jesus, that his ultimate purpose was to go to the cross. He came to the earth, and he would ultimately give his life to reconcile us, not only in relationship to God, but to each other. Which means that when we gather here, this is a holy thing. It's a sacred thing to be a part of the beautiful body of Christ. And we were given to each other for the building up of the body that all would see and all would know the beauty and the glory of God across the earth. Feel free to shout me down if you're with me on that. But it doesn't end there. It's not just about the presence of God in the family of God, it's about being a part of what God's doing, the mission of God is what we call that. And it's a being, it's about being attuned to his purposes, that what he does in us, he wants to do through us for the sake of the world. And when these things come together, I know that's not revolutionary. Every church probably has some version of these three things: presence, family, mission. But man, I'm telling you guys, when we can kind of fine-tune and continue to index our hearts, that this is what it means to grow into Christ's likeness and to become a people of love that actually sends a message into the world that God is good and He's done great things, and He's not far, He's near, and all who call on His name will be saved. That's good news, friends. Come on. So I want to invite us as we're coming into the year to not, we don't have to overcomplicate this, but it's just this is a chance to reflect and say, God, where is your invitation for us this year to grow in your presence and in your family and in your mission to become like you, to live with you. Amen. So uh we're gonna have this conversation we're gonna be in for the next few weeks, and I'm simply titling it Coming Home. And today I want to open up to Luke chapter 15, which is a very familiar passage. If you have your Bibles, you can open up to Luke chapter 15. And uh and we're gonna read maybe one of the most well-known passages from all of Scripture. And uh I want to invite us to experience it afresh together this year. Okay? So this is the story of the prodigal son, if you've ever heard it. It's the story of the prodigal son. So we're gonna start in verse 11, and it's a lengthier one. So hang with me on on this one, and then we'll we'll talk through it together and talk about God's invitations to us. So Luke 15, verse 11. And Jesus said, There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in a reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a sever a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread? But I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 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. But the father said to his 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. For this son, for this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field, and he came and drew near to the house. He heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to them, Your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him. But 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. But when the son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed a fat and cow for him. And you said to him, Son, you are always with me. And all that all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive, he was lost and is found. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. So my first time in Colorado was nearly 30 years ago. My family came out from Indiana to make sure that the Rocky Mountains were a real thing. It's something I only had heard about, and my dad had already always told me growing up you gotta make it to the Rockies. So we came, and this is like the first time I actually visited this church. And that week we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park in a janky, uh, you know, a janky camper for the week. And um and we did all the mountain things that you kind of do uh as a family. And I remember we went on a hike up in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's the first time my brother and my dad and I went on a hike. And if if you guys have been on these hikes, especially the well-marked ones, you know that uh as you're going up uh on these trails on the switchbacks, you're gonna see signs every so often that say something like this. It says, uh, please stay on the trail. Shortcutting causes erosion, severe erosion. Shortcutting causes erosion. All right. But when you're when you're a high school boy, erosion is not a felt need. All right? It's it does it's not an acute pain enough to change your sense of adventure. All right, and so we went up to these mountain lakes, and on the way back down, my brother, he's a little bit older than I, he decided he's like, dude, we're gonna do some shortcutting, man. I I know a faster way down. So he starts shortcutting his way down the mountain. Now, sadly for him, uh, he somehow got off the trail and he tripped and he fell and he got up and he completely lost the trail. And he had no idea where he is. So we my brother and I, or my dad and I get to the bottom of the mountain and we're looking around, and like my dad was supposed to be in the back, I was I was in the front, my brother is supposed to be in the middle, but my dad and I meet up and we're like, Where's Max? And we had no idea where he was. And so we're like, okay, this is strange. And so, you know, we waited and waited, and and it was clear like he wasn't there. We had no idea where he was. And so we kind of did what you do, you know, you start going back up the mountain and calling his name, you know, just like where did he go? He's way off the trail. And uh, we had no idea. And at this point, you know, you're from Indiana, first time in the Rockies. It's like your imagination is going all kinds of places about what could actually be happening here. Like, does did a mountain lion get him? Did he fall in a cavernous pit somewhere? All right, and I'm just rehearsing these conversations, like, oh god, what if we lose Max? Like, um, you know, what am I gonna tell people to get back to Indiana? Like, where's Max? I'm like, well God, it's really sad. I mean, apparently he didn't he doesn't believe in erosion. And and I got the best of them. Really, it's really, gosh, it's really a bummer. And uh, I didn't even know what I was gonna say. We just like looking for my brother, right? And so, so we uh so we decided to just go back to the campsite. We're like, we we contacted the authorities or whatever, and they see this kind of stuff all the time. We didn't know that. But uh we went back to our campsite, and shortly later, we find out that my brother he walks up on the uh uh up to the campsite, right? So later on, he actually just shows up while we're rehearsing all these scenarios, and uh and he what had happened is he fell, he lost the trails, but he just kind of went down and took the valley, just found the valley and there's the river, and just kind of walked all the way back, and somehow miraculously it led right back to our campsite. And uh, and it was one of those things where once we all saw each other, it was this massive sigh of relief, right? Because as soon as you see each other, certainly there's some questioning that's about to happen, but for that moment of time, you're like everyone's kind of celebrating, like, okay, finally, like worst case scenario is not gonna happen. You're here, we can actually resolve this thing. You you were lost, you have been found. And uh, and and there was kind of this sense of okay, everything is right now, everything is resolved. And so, you know, it's one of those things, all of us probably have a similar story of either being lost or having lost something we love, or some someone we love, or something we love, and this journey of what it's like to be found again. And so the story that we just read that um that that Jesus shares, um, it's it's this age-old story, some would call it maybe um the most famous or well-known summary of the gospel message, of what God, how how the Father is looking for those who are lost, and he's inviting them back into the home. It's it's considered to be one of the most poignant descriptions of what life in Christ is actually like. And and we read how the younger son in this story, in his rebellion, he he goes off, but somehow he comes to his senses, he finds his way back home, only to be received in the arms of the of a loving father who had been waiting for him the whole time. And meanwhile, there's the older brother who is resentful of this grace extended to his brother. And but the father, truthfully, he was waiting for both of his sons to come home the entire time. And and I want to start with this passage today and to kind of set up for the next several weeks because I believe this story really beautifully frames up the invitations the father has for us because the truth is this no matter where we are, who however you got into the room today, no matter who you are or where you're at in your journey, all of us are invited to come back home for wherever we are. We're all invited to return, and we need seasons and times of return. It's a lifestyle that we enter into. It's the returning life, a home to come back to. Okay? So just bookmark that for a second. I just want to talk a little bit about the younger son and the older son, and then some of the invitations to settle in for today. So the younger son in this parable, the the story starts off with the younger son asking for his inheritance. And and some of you know in the Middle Eastern culture at that point in time, to ask your father for your inheritance early is akin to uh to saying, I wish that you were already dead so I can take your property and go do what I want with it. All right. It was it was essentially the same kind of thing. So it was it was not just an early inheritance, hey, transfer some money from your account to my account. It was it was much more significant to that in this culture. There's kind of this uh despising kind of tone of I want to take what you have and I'm and I can do better with it on my own. And and the real the reality is the younger son had a he had a different plan for his life, and he chooses a life of independence to find it. So he catches a vision for a life that he really wants, and he concludes that in order for me to get that life that I want, I need to leave my father's house in order to go find it. Now, all throughout my life, I tend to think of the younger son and as, you know, this is really the depiction of an extreme version of rebelliousness, right? It's it's kind of like growing up, it was the enemy, the antagonist is always like a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's like, never do that. That's the worst thing you could ever do. So, like, of course, didn't do that. So I so for me, always reading about the younger son, I I would always read this without a sense of like that feels like me. It's like I would read this the story about the younger son. It's like, well, I've never asked my parents for inheritance. I never went out and got prostitutes. I must be doing okay. I'm glad I'm not like the younger son. All right. So I've always had a hard time connecting with the younger son because that just wasn't my story of this extreme rebelliousness. Maybe that was part of your story. It just wasn't my story of extreme rebelliousness, all right? Uh but that being said, all of us, as we read about the younger brother, without going to the extreme version, the core of what the younger brother was going through was he was finding all of the false ways to pursue his deepest desires. He was finding ways to get what he really wanted without having to rely on the goodness of his own father. Now that can look a lot of different ways besides sex drugs and rock and roll and prostitutes, all right? All of us have ways that we search to find things to fulfill outside of the house of the father. So Father Keating, he has a um a phrase for this called emotional programs for happiness. And there's these things that kind of run behind the scenes. They're operating systems that work in all of our lives. And he he he refers to this a few of them called the need for security and survival, the need for affection and esteem, and the need for power and control. All of us have programs with inside of us of what we're searching for and things that we tell ourselves of the pathway to go, get it. All right. Now, Henry Nowen, another spiritual writer that I'm a large fan of, he he has a little bit of a different language and he kind of likens it to the temptations in the desert. So even Jesus, when he went to the desert, said that Satan came and tempted him in the desert. What did he tempt him? He tempted him with the desire for relevance to be spectacular and to be powerful. And he used language like this in the desert when Jesus was in the desert. He said, If you were the son of God, if you were, if you're truly the son of God, and then he had a few different temptations attached to that. If you're the son of God, go and turn this these stones into bread. Go make a name for yourself. Go do something spectacular. Everybody is here for it. Right? Go do something, you know, like use your power to get what you need without having to depend on your father. Right? So irrelevancy, being spectacular, the need to be powerful. Others would liken this to the temptations in the garden. And some would even say the same temptations for Jesus were the same temptations in the garden for Adam and Eve when God said, Do not eat of that tree. And yet Satan comes to Eve and and says, Did God really say do not eat from this tree? Because actually, if you eat from this tree, what he knows that you don't know is that you will become like him. And you're gonna have the wisdom to know the difference between good and evil. And so even in the garden, even in the first three chapters of our origin story, there's this desire. And another way to frame this up is three words security, significance, and belonging. So there's different ways to kind of relate to these programs for happiness, these internal motivations, these cravings, our soul cravings of our deepest being. But think about Adam and Eve in the garden as they would what caused them to reach for a fruit and and and to move out of the presence of God, to move out of the trust and belovedness of the relationship with God, and to actually reach for a fruit. There is something inside of them that said, I need something more than what God has promised me. And I if if anything's if I'm gonna get it, I've got to take this into my own hands, literally. So they reached and they touched the fruit. And in doing so, there is this clamoring for I need something more sure and certain, which is security. I need significance, I need to be like God, not knowing that they were already like God, but they I need something more than what my current reality, security, significance, and even belonging. I want to join God and this communion, this the Trinity in heaven. I want to join this community and become more than what I am. And so within them, there is all of these things at work. And the same is true for us, because what happens for all of us is we may not think you're like the younger son, or you may think that that was a time in your past, but the reality is all of us are facing the decision every day of where we are tempted to stop trusting the father's home is the place to meet our deepest needs. The father's home is the place to meet our deepest needs. And so when we talk about security and significance and belonging, don't be mistaken, those are all good things. We actually need those things. You need to know that you are secure, you need to know that you are significant, you need to know that you belong. These are actually God-given impulses, cravings. They're eternal. And God made them all, and he implanted them inside of you so that they could be fulfilled in his love and in his home and at his table. And yet, through our lives, how gosh, there's this hymn uh that has this line of prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. How prone are we to wander? From the house of God and the home of God in order to go find something that we think we need. This looks um this looks this comes to us in a lot of di different ways. And they're so deep we're not even aware that they exist most of the time, which was why we need the revelation of the Holy Spirit and good community, even point them out in our lives, right? So just a few different examples of what this could look like. The extreme version is the need for substances, addictive, you know, behaviors to alleviate pain and bring comfort. Some of us, that's like that, you know, that's a real thing, right? Um, some of us, it's codependent and destructive relationships that we're afraid to let go of because of what that will mean for us. And that's a real thing as well. But but for a lot of us, it's not super extreme, it's much more subtle. Where do we leave the home of the father to pursue uh a sense of significance and security belonging? Sometimes it's just the chronic, living with the chronic fear of missing out. So you just keep saying yes to everything because you're so afraid of losing important relationships or opportunities because of case of what it would lead to. So that's some some of us here. So some of us, it's a fear of letting anybody down in case they reject us. Maybe it's an an attract, an attachment to significance with certain career paths or circles of people or certain experiences. I have to go do that in order to have the perception of value. And even in the church, we attach this to different activities. We we only feel valued and loved when we're singing on stage or serving in a particular way or prophesying or walking in certain gifts or doing something that looks really important. And so we attach these things. We go to find value and love and all kinds of different things. And at the end of the day, any habit or behavior that keeps us reaching somewhere else, always feeling a little unsettled where we are, is an indication that, like the younger son, we've we've fallen into a trap of I gotta go somewhere else to find the love of God. I've got to do something else. I remember years ago, I had an aha moment for me that it just it took both the revelation of the Holy Spirit and somebody to point this out in my life. I was actually, it was in leadership here, and I was being discipled by somebody. He was helping me understand what I was bringing into leadership meetings, and I was describing him that I was coming into meetings and leaving meetings just frustrated, on edge, unsatisfied. I would always just kind of like it'd come in with these high expectations to some of our leadership meetings, and but I but it just never like it was never good enough for me. And uh and it most of my issues had to do with other people in the room. Uh imagine that. Um and after a little digging, um, it occurred to me that you know the frustration was coming because I had a need to be in leadership meetings that we would walk out with these revelational plans and the most epic vision and purpose and all of these massive decisions that were being made. And I wanted the sense of like, we've got it. We went to the mountain and we've got it. And here it is, you know. And we weren't getting there, we weren't doing that. And I was leaving frustrated, and and as this person was digging with me a little bit, like, well, why is that so frustrating? I'm like, because people are wanting to know, they want to know there's a plan. And he's like, and I was like, he's like, well, what's wrong with not having a plan? He's like, because I'm gonna let them down. And he asked me the million-dollar question, what's so wrong with letting people down? And I realized in that moment that what was driving me wasn't even really the desire to discern the will of God. It was the desire to not let people down because I cherished, I wanted to belong and feel valued and loved. And it was operating at such a deep level in me, I didn't even know I was bringing it with me into all of my conversations and decision making. Do you guys feel me on that? All of us probably have examples. We show up to work with desires, we show up to our marriages with desires, we show up to our friends and communities with desires, we show up to this church with desires, and until we let God reveal to us what we're searching for and then what his pathway is to find, to come home to his love, these things just operate in our life and they never quite satisfy us. They always leave us with unsettled, longing, wishing everything was more. Does that feel familiar to anybody? And so in a moment of hunger, this younger son came to his senses. It took hunger. He didn't do it because it was the right decision. He was literally just hungry. He's like, Well, I better go home because I think my father I think they got it better there. And so for him, awareness is what preceded return. He was aware of his hunger and his need. And that was the catalyst for his return home. He realized that everything he actually needed, he could actually get in his father's house despite of his own pursuits. He was humiliated, embarrassed, but he didn't know that his father was actually waiting for him to come back, right? And I want to pause because there is a likelihood that there's some of us here that you need to come home to the Father. And maybe it's been a while of searching. You've been trying to do life on your own, you've been trying to design life on your own. You've been told what the good life is and how it's experienced, and you've been doing that, and it's not quite working for you. I'm telling you, you were made to be at home in the house of the Father. Today is your day to come back home. Some of you, the most important decision you make today is to say, God, to say, Father, I want to come back home. And to receive the love of the Father afresh in your wandering. It's okay to wander, we all do it, but the invitation is to return. Come back home. Today's your day. And if that's you after the service, come talk to our ministries, and we want to lead you in a prayer. We want to help you do that. Today is a day, everything can change today, and you can come back straight home to the Father. You don't need excuses, you don't need to, you don't need uh caveats, you don't need to explain yourself. Just say, Father, I need you and I want you. Okay, so hold that there. The invitation for all of us, though, here today is a really good question. I think this is gonna be on the screen. Where am I searching for significant security and belonging outside of the love of God? Okay? I want you to hold that question. In fact, I want you to chew on that question through January. Where am I searching for significant security and belonging outside of the love of God? And it could be so subtle that you may have missed it. That it's worth holding on to. Alright, you guys with me? So the younger son tends to get a lot of the air time in the story because it's so extreme. And the older son knows that too. And that's part of the older son's problem. It's like, why does he get all the why does he get all the air time? And so we meet this older son, this older brother, who uh the truth is he's just as lost as his younger brother, but he doesn't know it yet. The younger brother comes home, and for the older brother, it sparks this resentment, this jealousy, the entitlement in the heart of the older brother, because he's doing all the right things yet feeling completely left out. And he says this. He comes to his father and he says, Like, listen, this is so unfair. This this son of yours, it doesn't call him your brother, he doesn't even say it's my brother. He's like, the son of yours, he just squandered all your money, and you're gonna kill the fat and a calf for him? He's gonna get he's gonna get the smoked brisket. Right? So you never smoked me a brisket. You've never done that. It's like what why is he getting why is he getting the special meat? Like I've been here the entire time. Do you see how faithful I've been? I've just been obedient. I've been here, I haven't been raising a fuss, I've just been kind of working in the shadows, and you didn't do that for me. And the father's like, listen, I've got you've seen my Traeger. I can smoke you a brisket anytime, right? I've got the fat and calf. Everything, and he says these haunting words as the end of the stories. He said, Son, you're always with me. You know what I'm capable of, right? You know what I can do? Don't you know that everything I have is yours? And it's these haunting words because it's almost more startling than the story of the younger son, is the fact that the older brother was at home, yet he was never never truly at home. See, the younger mother, the younger brother was lost miles from home, but the older brother was lost inches from home. He was physically present but spiritually absent. I think that this more accurately describes a lot of Christians today, right? Maybe even in this church. We are so good at doing all the right things at the right time and being in all the right places at the right time, but still not really being at home in the love of the Father. And that might even be some of us today. You're showing up to church because it's the right thing to do, and you've been doing that. And Christians are really good at doing really good things on repeat over and over again and missing the awareness of the feast of God that is right in front of them. We're we can be we can do all of the right things and we can pat ourselves on the back. But the invitation of the father is to entreat and say, like, listen, there's so much more than doing the right things. Come inside the home into my love. It goes so much deeper than being a nice Christian. Come inside, come into my love. And that's the tragedy of the story is this older brother, he was invited into the party. It's the same invitation from the younger brother and the older brother to come into the party, but he never came to feast at the table. And I just wonder for us, some of us, you're not in a season of rebellion. Things are generally okay in your life. Like you're generally like, things are you know, I got some problems here and there, but things are generally okay. And yet you're not living with a sense of the nearness of the father. And you've settled into that as kind of a lived way of being. I'm just saying, your invitation for the year for the year is to move beyond ritual and routine and come home to the love in the heart of the Father. Come home. You don't have to, you're lost. And it's okay to be lost with your life still put together. But your invitation is the same. You need to come home because that's where life is best lived. Are you guys hearing me today? We come home. They were both living independently. The younger son was living independent of the father, searching for what he needed. The older son was living independent of the father, trusting in his own sacrifice. Henry Nowin said this. He said, There are many elder sons and elder daughters who are lost while still at home. He said, Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are all the obvious signs that I have left home. So if those are the kinds of things that are kind of lurking beneath the surface, even though you're serving, you're giving, you're attending, but you feel like this is constant thinking, nothing is going my way. God is withholding something from me. Does God even care? Is any of this actually worth it? The invitation is for the invitation of the Father is I am I am I'm still here and inviting you to know me so much deeper than what you know. Okay? So the invit the the question that we ask as it relates to the older brother is this where am I resisting the invitation to go further and deeper into the love of God? Where am I resisting the invitation to go further and deeper into the love of God? Again, you can trust your lifestyle, you can trust the things that you do. But for all of us, there's this invitation to go further and deeper into the love of God. And this is going to take the revelation of the Holy Spirit to show you that. But this is a question worthy of digging into. Okay? Okay, so let's talk about the Father here, and then we'll come into land for the morning. The Father in the story, he also reveals what we need to know about the nature of God and the love, the love of God. The Father, as Jesus depicts him in this story, is one who is waiting and longing, and not accusatory and not critical, but one who is he knows where his sons are at. And he's creating the kinds of conditions for them to come home and to be received with love, as long as they're willing to respond. So the father in this picture, it should rewire our picture of God. The most important thing about you is what you think of God. And so, this this picture of the love of the unconditional love of God, this is what this story invites us into. And over the course of our lives, the Father, as in this story, invites us to return home, not just as a one-time thing, but as a way of life. So no matter where we are, as we said before, no matter where we are, we always have a home to return to in the love of God. And I just want to leave that there for a moment and ask a few questions for us as we're setting up January. And I'm gonna talk more further about uh a specific invitation for the month of January that we're gonna be starting next week, okay? But some of us go through seasons of stripping away, much like the younger son, maybe you've lived through a season where the bottom dropped out, and and you came to quote, the end of yourself. And you didn't have any other option but to return home. There is a beautiful mercy in that for God to let us come to the end of ourselves so that we return back home. Sometimes it's a forced thing. It's like I'm hungry, or this no longer works for me. I've got, I've got to return back home to God's ways and God's will and God's life, right? But a lot of us, maybe if if we're not in that, then we have to we have to purposefully tune ourselves into a way that returns to God. So we have to purposely choose to do that. We don't live with an acute sense of need or hunger. In fact, many of us are so comfortable in our lifestyle that we never feel this need to return to God because things are generally working out okay. Even our pain oftentimes is momentary. So to return to God, it requires an intentionality of heart in order to grow independence in God again. This is what is, I feel like one of the urgent needs, especially in the Western church, is a lot of times we don't hunger for God because we don't need God. We do need God, but we don't feel like we need God. We feel like I know where the shortcuts are, I know my pathway, and I think I can, I can, I think I can design my life the way that I want to. And so we have to, one of the one of the actions, and we're gonna talk about this in a second, but one of the one of the practices and movements of the church that has marked believers for ages is times and seasons of returning to God. And it's not about returning to the good old days or nostalgic thinking of what I used to do. It's about responding to God's invitation for today. It's returning to Jesus as our vision. It's returning to, it's it's coming home to the house of the Father, but that means also coming home to his presence again, coming home to his family again, coming home to his mission again. And so the question that we have to ask is where have we got off the trail and where do we need course correction as we come into 2026? Okay, so worshiping is gonna play behind me. I'm gonna ask a few questions though, that I I just that are gonna build upon the questions we've already checked one, two. Okay, there we go. I'm gonna ask a few questions, and and I I want you to you can jot these down, you can write these down on your phone, you can write down the ones that I've already given to you, and I just want to take a moment of reflection, okay? So, question number one is this as you're coming into today, where have I wandered? Not in proximity, but in connection. Where have I wandered? This is a good question, because all of us are drawn to so many different things. Where have I wandered? Maybe it's in your thought life, maybe it's in the maybe it's in your heart. Maybe it's in your pursuit of of certain things, but without an awareness of God's presence. Maybe it's in isolation, away from the family of God, or you've wandered from the mission that God's given you in this season. Where have you wandered? Here's the second question: what would it look like to come home this year? What would it look like to come home? And you might just make just frame that up as a prayer with God of like, God, where have I can you show me? Is there any place where I've left home with you to do something else? Or to live in a certain way, or where have I lacked awareness of living with you? Okay, so what would it look like to come home? Third question how is God inviting you to come closer to Him? How is God inviting you to come closer to Him? And one good way to think through this is are there any habits that have taken you away from the voice of God, the home of God? Are there habits, behaviors, thought life, things that have marked your life, you feel like this is not leading me closer to God. This is taking me away. I just want you to take an inventory of that, okay? Just hold these questions before the Lord, and I think over the next few weeks, I'm asking that you just that you ponder these questions, okay? And here's what we're gonna do. I want you to bring these questions, we're gonna frame these up as a prayer. The worship team's gonna sing here for a second, and then I have one more invitation from you. But let's just do this, just around the work room. Go ahead and close your eyes. And I'm I want to pray in prayer on behalf of us, on behalf of myself, but also of all of us as we hold these questions before God. So, Jesus, as we come into this year, we want to respond to the invitation to reorient our lives around you. And I pray that today and over the next coming weeks, you would show us or reveal to us there's any parts of our life that have gone off stray, where any course correction is needed. I thank you, God, that only you can show us what those things are. But I just pray for each of us right now that you would reveal something to us so that we can follow you back home and we can return back home to your love, like the younger son, like the older son, we're invited to do. God, as we sing here, I just pray that you would speak. We pray that you would speak to your people today. Let's just take a couple more minutes and reflect here, pray and sit before the Lord, and then we'll come back and wrap this up. I hope that you feel that this morning. The Father is waiting, he's eager, he loves you, you are the beloved of God, and there is always a path forward to come home. So I hope that that's the tone that you have this morning. Here's what I want to as you're holding these questions before the Lord, maybe it's not immediately clear to you what God's invitation to you is right now, but all of us have room to move towards Him. One of the things that we We see in the story again, this younger brother only came home when he was hungry. And uh the reality is we often live so overfilled that we're not aware of our own hunger. And so we actually have to develop dependence on God. And so throughout history and throughout the scriptures, one of the ways that the people of God have tapped into a sense of dependence is through the practices of fasting and prayer coupled together. Um, and at these threshold moments all throughout scriptures, when there's the beginning of a new season, the start of something new, there's oftentimes these practices of consecrating, setting ourselves apart before the Lord. Oftentimes in the book of Acts, you hear about fasting and prayer. And as as the believers were gathered together, they would actually pursue God through fasting, and they it's they they set aside intentional times for this purpose. And it's actually not unique to Christians. Almost every major world religion has a high regard for fasting because in a fasted state, we are actually more spiritually sensitive. And uh and and we see this not only with the early church, we see that Jesus actually fasted in the desert. Even the Son of God, he fasted in his earthly body to grow in connection with his father. Um, it's not a very common thing in our culture, except as it relates to dieting, right? We hear about intermittent fasting, that's about the only reference point in our particular culture, but but from a sacred, from a holy point of view, it actually is much more than that. It's about declaring war against overconsumption and the things that numb our desire for God. Okay? So let me just talk about a couple things. It's like it's a it's a strip, it's an intentional stripping away of convenience in order to make more room for God in our spirit. And there's times and seasons, again, where we're stripped away, but for the rest of us, we actually have to initiate times of stripping away in order to cultivate a sense of God, I need you. And I cannot move forward without you. And I refuse to move to go forward without living with the sense of that I need your presence every single day. And so fasting is a way that we interrupt the regularly scheduled program to become dependent on God again. Okay? It's an interruption, a planned interruption in our lives. So if you've never fasted before, let me just explain the heart of it and in a few different ways that you can take a step into it. Okay. Number one, fasting classically, historically, is it's a removal of food. Some partially, you know, just maybe a meal a day, or maybe it's certain kinds of food, and maybe it's a full water fast for a period of time. And what happens is when we abstain from food, not only does our physical body remind us that we are more than a physical body, that we are spiritual beings, but every time a hunger pain comes, it's an invitation to return to God in prayer. Um, fasting oftentimes, it's not just about food. Sometimes it's good to fast from other things that aren't just food. I've talked to friends before that said, you know, fasting food is easy, but what's really hard is fasting other things, like my addiction to news or my addiction to social media or certain books or certain movies or TV shows. Some of you, that's actually harder than not eating. Okay? So the question for you is where are the invitations from God in your life? And what are the where can you, where is God maybe leading you to abstain from for 21 days or period of time that would allow you to attune to Him and His voice again? Fasting is not about proving discipline, it's about creating hunger, it's not about earning God's favor, it's about enlarging our hearts. It's about it's not about dieting, even though that you're gonna get that benefit. It's not about dieting, it's not about losing a few inches around the waist, even though some of us can you can use that, all right? Other people are doing it that in January. That's not why we're doing it. It's about communion with God, it's about creating space for communion with God. It's not even about doing hard things or mental toughness, it's about Jesus as the vision. Okay? Can we just make sure that's clear here? It's about Jesus as the vision. And so we want to invite you on January 12th, as a community, we're gonna set aside 21 days, and we all have an invitation to fast and pray together. And the invitation you you be led by God if there's anything he's asking you to abstain from or remove from your life for 21 days, in order to make room for prayer, listening to his voice, and creating a new dependence on God as you come into 2026. You guys with me? And one of the things we're doing is we're creating a prayer guide that it will have daily prayer prompts and just some guided prayers that you can use in that time. If you want to sign up for that and just even just if you want to participate in this, here's what we're asking you to do. If you go to that QR code in the in the seat back in front of you, or you just go to the website, the lookout.church slash connect, you can either do one of those two things. On the list, you're gonna see a link that says 21-day fast. When you click on the link, you'll have a form and you just let us know that you're in, okay? And that's just a way of saying, hey, who's who's participating in this? How are we gonna do this together? Again, you can go to the lookout.church slash connect or that QR code, we'll send it out in the midweek email as well. But if you feel like God has prompting you to participate in this, if you want to set aside 2026 and you want to do something radical and intentionally countercultural that will actually reintroduce discomfort and inconvenience in your life, sounds exciting, doesn't it? If you want to reintroduce discomfort to interrupt your previously scheduled program and to return in your attention to the love of God, this is your chance to do it. Nobody else is doing this. I mean, nobody else in the world is doing this, but followers of Jesus have intentional sides of saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna set a new trajectory. This is our chance to do it together. And I think it's awesome when we get to do it together. We all need seasons of resetting the center, and this is our chance to return home together. We're gonna be talking about this over the next few weeks, coming back home to the presence of God, coming home to the family of God, coming home to the mission of God. That's how we're gonna be praying. And I believe that God wants to unlock our ears to hear his voice. I think God is gonna speak to us on a new level. He's gonna speak to you. And I want to encourage you, if you've never taken this step, this is your shot to do something that that could position you to be in tune with God on a whole new level as we enter the year together. Does that sound like a fair invitation? Yes, you gotta convince me you're excited about this, okay. And even if you're not, you will be, because there's nothing like the presence of Jesus, there's nothing like hungering for God. We're at our best when we are hungering for God. Okay, let's stand together. Let's stand together. Thank you. Thank you for for those of you who will be responding to the invitation. I know we already have a couple dozen that are already signed up for that. This is a chance for all of us to do it. And we'll explain more as we go. And again, we're not starting until the following Monday, January 12th, okay? But listen, this morning, as you're coming in, I said a lot of things today, but uh, you may have heard a few different invitations. Here's what we're gonna do. And we're gonna have our ministry team, and these are people with prayer badges or badges that say prayer team on them. They're gonna be kind of on the sides of the room, okay? As we end here today, some of you just need to pray with somebody and you need to return home to the heart of the Father. And I just encourage you, do not leave those doors until you won't go and pray with somebody who can pray with you. If that's what God is leading you to do, go get prayer. Um, for the rest of us here today, as we leave, I just want to encourage you, find somebody you haven't met yet, introduce yourself. If you're a guest here today, you're gonna see a sign in the back that says connect with us. We want to get to know you. We want to talk to you about some things coming up in January. We're so thankful that you're here. And come on, guys, let's go into January. Let's go into 2026, full of faith, full of hope and expectancy that the father's home is waiting for us, and his father's home is full of life. Amen. Amen. So let me pray for us. Jesus, we thank you for today. I thank you for a great new year. I thank you for this family and all that you have in store. I just pray that you lead us coming out of here and that you help us to return to you in every part of our life. We love you, Jesus, and it's in your name we pray together, and all God's people said amen. All right. Happy New Year, everybody.