SPEAKER_01 0:00

I want to begin this Father's Day sermon with a very honest admission. Okay. We're in the middle of a series called Within, where we're looking at what God has to say about the priority of our inner lives. And I'm fully aware that a conversation about your inner life is not what a guy comes to church to hear on Father's Day. The other day, Haley and I were pulling out of our driveway for a long road trip, and uh she was really excited, and I said, What are you so excited about? I mean, she was giddy, and I said, What are you so excited about? She said, Because we have several hours to have deep conversations about stuff. Where do you want to start? And I just dropped my head and said, It's gonna be a long, long trip. And me telling guys on Father's Day that we're gonna talk about the inner life is about the same as Haley telling me we're gonna have several hours of deep combos. I get it, fellas. But here's what I know, okay? For some reason, most men work really hard to keep things at a surface level. When it comes to intimacy in our relationships, or when it comes to our relationship with God, we feel awkward and uncomfortable with what we can't control or measure or fix. We spend most of our lives projecting, projecting confidence, projecting strength, manhood. We wear the phrases like I'm fine. I'm fine. Like it's a badge of honor. Rarely do we find ourselves in relationships that are deep enough or places that are safe enough that we can be vulnerable and honest about what's going on in our inner lives. So we just avoid it and pretend that it doesn't exist. Usually it takes something tragic or life-defining to get us to go there, to look within, to think about what's happening in our interior lives. And that's exactly what happened to a man in the most famous story Jesus ever told. His life went to shambles and it forced him to take an honest look inside. And when he did, he was disgusted at what he had become. But that look within brought him to a decision that inevitably led him to throw himself on the mercy of his father. And it was a single decision that changed everything in his life. Before I take you to that story, I have to show you what the Bible has to say about the interior of every single one of us, every human heart. I'm gonna read two specific verses from the Old Testament. The first verse is from Jeremiah, and it reveals the problem, the ugly diagnosis of every human heart. The second verse from Ezekiel gives God's promise to our wayward hearts. God says in Jeremiah 17, the human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. That's the diagnosis, the problem. But here's the promise from God. Ezekiel 36, I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. That is the hope of the gospel message in just two short verses. God wants to completely renovate your interior life. He wants to give you a new heart. And the story that Jesus tells in Luke 15 shows us how that can happen. Luke 15 opens with Jesus sitting with this crowd of questionable people on his one side. The Pharisees and religious leaders are sitting on the other side. And the religious leaders are blasting Jesus because he keeps being seen in public with these questionable people, tax collectors and sinners. And to correct the religious arrogance of the Pharisees, Jesus tells three stories in a row about lost things. And he's telling these stories to reveal to the Pharisees the heart of God for lost things, for wayward hearts. He tells the story of the lost sheep, he tells the story of the lost coin, and he tells the story of the lost son. The third story, the lost son, goes like this. To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story. A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die. So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. A few days later, the younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. Now, this guy isn't just being financially reckless. He is making a statement in that culture to ask your father for your inheritance before he was dead was essentially the same thing as wishing him dead. It was one of the most shameful things a son could have done to a father in that era. He didn't want the father's money. Yes, he did, but more than anything, he wanted out. He wanted away from the father, any association with the father. He wanted life on his terms. And the father let him go. He divided his property, handed it over. He didn't try to control him, didn't threaten him. He opened his hand and let his son walk away. The son chose this, and he gets everything he thought he wanted: distance, freedom, money, a life with no accountability, no restraints. And for a while, it's great. The text says wild living. One party after another, one woman after another, spending, taking, consuming, anything that was different from the restrictions of the father's house. But the money eventually runs out. And about the time it does, a famine sweeps the land. People are starving, and it's not long until the wayward son is starving and desperate. And he persuades a local farmer to hire him to feed pigs. And he's so hungry, the Bible says, that the slop that he was feeding the hogs looked desirable to him. Listen, living to satisfy your exterior life, the crowd will always eventually run out. For the original Jewish audience hearing this story, the image of feeding pigs was the lowest possible place a man could end up. Pigs were considered the most unclean animal. So this isn't just a place of poverty. This is describing defilement. This is as far from home, as far from his identity as a son of the father that this guy could possibly get. That was what was being communicated to Jesus' original audience. And the Bible says in Luke 15, verse 16, but no one gave him anything. And that detail is not accidental. When the resources were flowing, when the people were there, I mean, uh they were there to take his money, they were there to attend his parties, they craved his company, but now all those resources are gone, the people are gone. When you live for the exterior life, inevitably you're gonna end up broken and alone. But the most important moment of his life happens in verse 17. Here's the way it reads in the New King James Version. But when he came to himself, and that's a very important phrase, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger? The phrase, he came to himself, marks one of the most pivotal moments in the entire Bible. Now, I would never bore you with these details if they weren't significant, but you have to see this. Watch. The phrase in the original Greek, for he came to himself, is I ace hotend de ethlon. It literally translates, he came into himself. We're talking about the interior life. If that doesn't make sense to us, so it was it was translated where it was more readable in English, but literally it would read, he came into himself. He looked within, he he turned to the interior life. His life had fallen apart. He's at the end of the rope, and for the first time ever, he had to stop and look into himself. And when he does, he finally realizes what he's become and how far that person is from what he was meant to be. Matthew Henry, the great Bible commentator, put it this way: when he came to himself, it intimates that he had been beside himself. In other words, in his rebellion, in his far country living, he was not being himself. He was not living as a son of the father, he was not being who he was created to be. He had lost his identity. And he finally comes back to his senses. He comes to himself in the mud and the manure of a pig pen, and he says, This is not what I was made for. This is not who I am. And when he finally looked in, he describes what he saw. Verse 17, when he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, At home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger. I will go to my father and say, Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and when I'm no longer worthy of being called your son, please take me as a hired servant. It's amazing to me that when you finally look inside and you start getting honest with yourself about what really is going on, how it shifts. Notice everything he was trying to get away from, he's now craving to get back to. Because when things start getting righted in your interior life, it shifts the perspectives on the outside. When he finally sees his real self, his interior life, he didn't like what he saw. He saw a man who had wasted everything, who had dishonored his father, who had chased a life that left him empty. But here's the truth about these moments of awareness. Sure, he felt shame, but this was more than a moment of shame. It was a moment of clarity. Because for the first time in a long time, he saw himself accurately. Your inner life, when you finally face it, will tell you the truth. And even when the truth is hard, being honest about it is always the first step toward home. Here's what you have to understand. Of all the ways his selfishness had caused him to despise his father's house and his father's ways, it had not stolen the one thing he fundamentally knew in the depths of his soul. His father was merciful. In the ancient context, you have to understand this a young man who returned home to his father after wishing his father dead, and after blowing his inheritance on parties and prostitutes, that young man would have been expected to have been stoned. That was Jewish law at that time, and that culture defined this young man's situation. You don't believe me? Read it in Deuteronomy 21, verse 18 to 21. It tells you what would happen to a young man like this. And it it the law was stoning. So for him to get up and consider going back home as even an option, he has to weigh the law against the mercy of his father. And there's something inside of him that said, I know in the depths of who he is, my father is merciful. And so I'm gonna go throw myself on that mercy. But the son, even with that reality, did not grasp how merciful the father was. Because in his mind, he had forfeited the right to even be a son, but he believed his father was merciful enough to take him in as a hired servant. He severely underestimated the depth of the father's mercy. And this is where the story turns. The parable that Jesus is telling, we've always referred to it as the parable of the prodigal son. It's his most famous parable. But it could probably be more appropriately titled The Parable of the Waiting Father. Because that's really where this story is trying to get to. The story shines the light where it needs to be shined on a Father's Day like this, where we can focus on the incredible patience and mercy and grace of our Heavenly Father. Everything in the story up to this point has been about the Son, his choices, his failures, his interior reckoning. But ultimately, Jesus is telling the story for all the arrogant religious people in the original audience that didn't understand God's merciful heart toward lost people, wayward hearts. And he's telling it for all of us so that we can fully grasp just how forgiving and merciful the Father really is. In verse 20, it says this so he returned to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. Now there are several key phrases in that verse that you can't miss. We're going to focus on a couple of them, but because they tell you something about the father's love and heart for you. For the father to see him coming while he was still a long ways off means that the father had to have been looking for him. His father had been watching that road every day, scanning the horizon, looking for a figure in the distance that just might be his son coming home. The father had not given up on him. He hadn't moved on. He hadn't turned the son's bedroom into a guest room. He was watching the road. And when his son saw him, he ran. We read that as modern Americans, and we don't understand the magnitude of how that would have landed on Jesus' original audience. It's remarkable because in the culture of Jesus' day, a man of dignity and standing did not run. Running meant you had to hitch up your robe, show your legs, look undignified. Servants ran, children ran, men of standing did not run. But this father runs toward his son. He threw social etiquette out because embracing his son more mattered more than anything else. And he didn't even let his son finish his prepared speech. He didn't stand at a distance with his arm crossed and say, I'm so disappointed in you. He ran, he embraced, he kissed him before a single word of an apology could ever be spoken. After reading this part of the story that Jesus tells, Henry Nowen wrote this, he said, Here is the God I want to believe in. A father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting, never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless, not punish, not shame, not make you earn your way back. His desire is to bless. And then the father in Jesus' story does something that everybody in the first century audience would have understood. He said, But his father said to his servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and kill the calf. We have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and was has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found. So the party began. A robe, a ring, and sandals. In that culture, a robe was a sign of honor. And remember, this son was returning straight from a pig pen. He got up out of the pig pen and said, I'm going home. His hair would have been matted, his tattered clothes would have been stained with the mud and manure of pigs, and yet the father embraces him and then covers the boy's filth with his own honor. A family signet ring was a sign of authority and belonging. He was saying to his son, he was restoring him to his identity, what he was created to be. You're not a servant, you're a son. He did the same thing with the sandals. Servants went barefoot. Son wore sandals. The father was making a declaration. You're still my son. The father didn't give him what he deserved, he gave the son what he could have never earned. And that's the message of the gospel. This is what is waiting for every person under the sound of my voice whose heart has wandered from the Father. If shame is keeping you away from the Father, you're not returning for a lecture or a probationary period or a list of requirements that you have to come back from. A robe, a ring, a feast is waiting on you. A father running down the road to get to you before you can even say, I'm sorry. Maybe you've been gone for a while. Choices you've made, patterns you've been stuck in, all of it creating distance between you and him. But somewhere inside you, within today, there is a spiritual hunger to come back home. I hope you, if you're if your heart is away, I hope you feel that today. We've been praying for that. On this Father's Day, your heart would be drawn to the heart of the Father. Some of you have been gone a long time, so long you don't even remember what the Father's love feels like. Over time, through a thousand small choices, somewhere along the way, God became something from your past instead of a present reality. The far country became your normal. You stopped looking toward home because you stopped believing there was a father waiting on your return. Let me make you this promise. He's still watching the road. I don't care where you are this Father's Day, what you've done, or who you are, if you're a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, eight, eighteen, eighty, you're not too far gone. The road back home is not as long as you think it is because the father is already running in your direction, shortening the distance. And to help make this clear for you and as plain as possible as we can today, I've asked our creative teams and worship team and video teams through song and video to help us understand what it might look like if Jesus had told this story in 2026. If the parable of the prodigal son, or maybe better said, the parable of the waiting father was told today for the first time, it might look and sound something like this.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Only the world so I spin it all searching for something I didn't know Who's under the roof of my father's home? But he never took a promise because he's calling Jesus. After all, his father is a forgiving God.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

It is. It's me. I um I wasn't sure if you'd pick up. I was kind of hoping you would, but I get it. I probably wouldn't pick up for me either. It's been I don't even know how long now. Too long. I've been a lot of places since I left. Most of them I wouldn't tell you about. I've done a lot of things too, and I regret all of it. That I I really do. I know how bad I hurt you. I know what I said when I left. And I know I'm the one who stopped calling. That was me. That was that was all of me. That was all me. But I miss you. I miss the way we drive out on those back roads with the windows down and just talk about nothing, about everything. I miss the way the house smelled on Sunday mornings. I miss. I just miss you. So here's the thing, this is kind of a shot in the dark, I know it is, but I'm driving home today, and I'll be coming up the road right by the house. I know I can't just show up at the door like I used to. I lost that right a long time ago. So here's what I'm asking. If you want to see me, if you still want me in your life, hang a white sheet on the porch row. Just one. That's all. And if the sheet's not there when I drive by, I'll understand. I'll keep going. And I won't I won't bother you anymore. I promise. Alright. I love you, Dad.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

When you run up, come on enough to me.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Look, I'm not gonna belabor the moment today. Father's Day is about the men in the room, but ultimately it's about us coming to the Father's heart. The sheet is out. He's watching the road. Does it matter today if you're female or male, if you're eight eighty. I think the Spirit of God is calling somebody home today. I don't care how long you've been gone. If you've been in this church for ten years every Sunday and your heart has been somewhere else, it's time to come home. If today is the first day you ever showed up in church, the Spirit of God is beckoning you, it's time to come home. This is what I know. When a young man came to himself, he he came to his senses, he he he took action and he walked a long road home. I could pray a prayer today. Ask you to do it in your heart. But I just felt in my heart that you need to start walking to him because he's already running towards you. I'm gonna pray for you in this room, and then when I say amen, every every one of you, and if it's just one, I'm gonna wait here like a patient, Father, and I want to pray with you. The Spirit of God is calling your heart home today, and I'm gonna wait on you to start the long walk home. He's gonna run and meet you, and I want you to meet me right up here. The sheets are out, he's watching the road. Run to Jesus today. Father, right now, somebody's gonna make. I remember this moment in my life. It changed everything. I came to myself. I pray that you would soften stony hearts and give them a heart of flesh. They know who they are. You're talking to them right now. They feel it. There's something about this story and this moment that fits right where they're living. And there's a they feel the beckoning, the call in their heart, your love, your grace, pulling them home. Nobody can respond to that but them. I pray today, Lord, we encourage them, we pray for them, we make the space available. I pray that you do what only you can do in their hearts, and they respond to your patience and your grace. When I say amen, if you need to be at this altar, come just stand here with me, and I'm gonna pray for you in a minute. One, two, three. Amen. Come on. If you need to be here, come. Come on. Run to Jesus. Come on. I don't if you're a guest, I promise you we're not. We just want to pray for you. If you've been here every Sunday and your heart is wandered, come home. Just run to Jesus. Come on, would you cut on? That's it. Encouragement. He's already running your way. He's already running your way.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

You've been out on your own outside to come. Just a run to Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

Just a run to Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Run to him. Jesus waiting. He's a forgiving God.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Just a run to Jesus. Just a run to Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Just a run to Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. You've been out on your own outside.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

If you're trying, I know it's early on a Father's Day, but this is a God moment for somebody in this room. And I don't want to miss this. If you we we created space for there to be time for this. For you to hear the heart of your fathers. Just come to yourself. Be who God created you to be. Come back to the Father. I'm going to wait five, ten more seconds, and I'll pray with those that are here. But if you need to be here, come. Run to Jesus. Father, may they feel your love in your heart. Like they never felt it before. You're pursuing grace. Come to Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Thank you, Lord.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

I want to pray with those of you that are here. Just borrow some form of my words. I'm going to pin them. They'll be on your screens. If you're kneeling, just so you can pray your own. Just let me help today. Gracious, patient, waiting, Father. I'm coming home. At times I've been just a little ways down the road. At other times I've been a long ways off. But today I'm coming home to you. I know the sheets are out. I know you've been watching the road. You never stopped. Today I've come to myself. I've come to my senses. I've stopped pretending that my way is working. I get up from this mess of my own making and throw myself on your mercy. I don't come because I deserve it. I don't I come because I know you're a forgiving God. I don't come because I'm good enough. I come because you're the one who covers my sin with your righteousness. Do what only you can do in me. Put the robe on me, put the ring on me, put sandals on me, call me son or daughter. Not because I earned it, but because your grace offers it. A new heart, Lord. That's what Ezekiel said you would give me. I'm asking for the renovation of my heart. Take out what's been hard and stubborn and far from you. Put something tender in its place. Something that lives surrendered to you. Let it be Christ in me. The hope of glory. Jesus, on this Father's Day. I'm back. I'm home. Father, would you feel this in the hearts of people who feel the tender tug of the Holy Spirit to be home at the Father's house? Would you let this day, Father's Day 2026, be a pivotal and transformational moment in every life at the front of this building? We ask this in Jesus' name. Listen to me. We have prayer team members already positioned to help. If you're here at the front and you want to pray with somebody, our team is going to make themselves available to serve you. If you need prayer, you're in the room, you need prayer for anything, the prayer team will be available here to serve you today. If you're here at the front of the room and you want a next step for your faith, go to next steps out in the lobby. We have a gift we want to put in your hands just to say, here, here's what's next. Here's how you can act on this moment and grow so that you don't waste what God is doing in your heart right now. Just go to next step and say, hey, I went forward today. Can you help me? They're ready for you. Lord, I thank you for the tenderness of the Spirit. The Father's Day, Lord, for me, on an earthly level, it's difficult because my earthly father didn't represent you. But I've been able to turn my heart toward you, and I pray that you would that you would heal the hearts in this room today as we make Father's Day about you, not just our earthly fathers. And would you do something deep and profound in the lives of these people here and in all of us? I ask you bless us to bless them, your people, keep them, make your face shine down upon them and be gracious to them. Lord, turn your countenance their way and give them peace in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you guys. Happy Father's Day.