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You may notice that my voice sounds just a slightly lower than usual. I'm doing a real Lauren Bacall saying this morning, if you know who that is, just have a little bit of a cold. But we have examined how Jesus dealt with our brokenness on the cross.

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When we examined how, through the power of the resurrection, we can be transformed and continue to be transformed through our lives. What I want to look at this morning is how then are we going to go back from the mountain top and go back into real life?

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How are we to go back into the world living like Jesus? When we look at the fact that Jesus came to this planet, why did He come? Well, obviously He came to die for our sin and to die for our brokenness and restore us into a bright relationship with God.

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One of the first things that He talks about is that He talks about, "I have come to bring the kingdom of God." What is the kingdom of God all about? The kingdom of God, He says to a Pharisee, an expert on the law, when He said, "What do

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I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus says, "Do you remember what you've read? How do you read the law?" He said, "Well, yes.

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You're supposed to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor is yourself." And Jesus says, "That's it." If I was going to summarize it all, that's it.

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The kingdom of God is about relationship. That is what's so radical about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is about loving relationship, not simply religious activity. It is loving, passionate, 100% loving God, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

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So Jesus explained the kingdom of God, which they should have known in the law, and then He went about living it, and the minute He went about living, what it meant to bring the kingdom of God to earth, He was immediately criticized. And the story that we just heard, which I know, it's almost dangerous to speak on a story

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that is so familiar. But the reason why this is so important is that you see Jesus immediately being criticized for bringing the kingdom of God and living the kingdom of God on earth. So in parables especially context is king, context is king, context is everything.

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And what is it that they're so upset about? They believe it is scandalous that Jesus is associating with sinners. They don't understand it. So when they, Jesus hears that the religious leaders are very, very critical of his association

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because they say in the context of Lucic's teen one and two, the man welcomes sinners and eats with them, disgusting. So what Jesus does is he says in essence, all right, I'm going to tell you some stories, to explain why I'm behaving this way.

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And what it really is is all about helping them understand the character of God. And so he talks about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and then lost sons. The parable of the prodigal son is really misnamed. I think it should be called the parable of the lost sons because both are lost.

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But anyway, what we learned in the first story, in the second story, the lost sheep, the lost coin is that Jesus says, "Don't you know there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents." Malcolm muggaged the British satirist Witts head when he read this, that there is more

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joy in heaven over one sinner who repents is an anti-stitistical proposition. Everybody is somebody to Jesus. Everybody is somebody. So Jesus, that's the context of their complaining.

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I want to look at the parable of the prodigal son. Now remember, this is really important. And one of the things I want to show you is how Jewish this story is. I had the great privilege of living in Jerusalem for three years in the '80s and that enabled

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me to take a lot of classes and I took some classes to two classes with Orthodox rabbis. And all my goodness, the insight they had into the text to help it really revolutionized my understanding of the text. So anyway, Jesus is speaking to this Orthodox, very religious group.

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They were committed to holiness. They were committed to being good. They believed in God and you really can't understand this story unless you realize Jesus is intentionally pressing every Orthodox button.

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This story is perfectly designed to offend Orthodox Jews. So I want you to pretend you're this Orthodox crowd. You're the Orthodox Jewish crowd. You have your quiet times.

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You go to, well, it would be synagogue, but in this context, you know, go to church. You tithe. You really care about righteousness. And so Jesus says, all right, why am I associating with sinners?

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All right, let me tell you a story. There was a father and he had two sons. And the younger son came to the father and said, "Father, give me my share of the state." And so the father divided the property between them right out of the gate.

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And one of the things I love about Semitic culture is that it's very dynamic. It's not what we would say in America, wasp, you know, white people that sit and listen and never say anything. Now in black culture in America, they'd be a man, preach it, you know.

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That's not, but in Jewish culture, they'd be interacting with each other. I love it. They'd be talking to each other right away. And Jesus says that, and that would be so offensive to this crowd.

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Because the father in Jewish culture in first century, much less even today, he is highly respected, honored. You would want to stay part of their understanding of, and this is true in other places in the world as well, that the adult children would stay and take care of their parents.

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But what does this boy do? He's arrogant. He's disrespectful. And of course, he asked for his inheritance.

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Now I know you know this. You know, when do you ask for an inheritance after the parent has died? It's a little more polite, okay? And so what does, and remember, this is a shame culture.

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This is a traditional culture. This is not the modern Western culture we live in. And so what is he really saying? Hey, are you never going to die?

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I have been waiting for you to die. I have waited for you to kick the bucket. And I've given up. I'm not waiting anymore for it over.

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I want my share of the inheritance. I'm tired of waiting. This is so offensive to a first century Jewish culture. I can't even begin to tell you.

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And of course, this is a real crisis. He is breaking relationship with this father. There isn't really anything worse in that culture than to break relationship with your father.

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Now you are the crowd, you're sitting there, imagine what you're doing. You're just like, oh, the outrage. Oh, this is absolutely disgusting. The nerve of that boy, oh, the father.

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Don't you pity the father in Jesus goes, I hate to tell you this, but it gets worse. And Jesus says, then the boy left for a distant country. Now this is code word to Jews. Any Orthodox do you understood immediately?

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Because what the code is, it means distant country means he is going to go someplace where the moral law can't be practiced. He went no doubt to Gentile land. Why did he go so far away?

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He didn't want to hear one more doubt, shout, not. He was not only breaking relationship with his father. He was breaking relationship with his faith community. He wanted to do exactly as he pleased.

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And so he is turning his back both on the father and on his faith community. The crowd would be absolutely horrified. And then Jesus goes, okay, it gets worse. He said he squandered all of his money and Jesus very politely says on wild living.

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Now later we get a little clearer picture from the elder brother. But it would be, wild living would be drug sex and rock and roll. So he's going out doing the wild living. And then Jesus said, after he had squandered, I like that, not spent squandered.

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He sheckled of his father's inheritance, a severe famine came and he began to starve. Every implication about this family is that it was a wealthy family. So this son who was accustomed to being waited on, accustomed to luxury, he has to hire himself out as a servant in order to live.

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And he became a slave. And what would you be saying is the crowd, good, good, I'm glad, what a low life. You know, I am glad. And remember this, in first century there were two things that would happen when you shamed

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your father in a shamed culture, when you shamed the family. One would be, they did an actual ceremony of excommunication in which they pronounce you dead. They actually do this today, not quite the same severity, but they will call you dead.

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If when you leave a family, shame the family and turn to another faith, or they would stone you to death. Both were real possibilities, but then Jesus takes it a step further. You keep thinking he couldn't say anything more horrible to this Jewish crowd.

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And then how does he describe the boy's work? He got a job feeding pigs. It wasn't little limbs. And Jesus knew what he was doing.

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He said, and he got a job feeding pigs. He's intentionally making this as bad as it could be now. You are beside yourself, and you can imagine them turning to each other, or they, but a hot break for this father that it should happen.

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And Jesus goes, I hate to tell you this. It gets worse. If you wanted to say something really disgusting about a nice Jewish boy raised in a kosher kitchen, this would have to be it.

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Jesus said, well, he got so hungry. He wanted to eat the pig's food, and they're like, okay, can't take it. That's it? No more.

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Now, they are beside themselves. How could he shame the father? How could he go? Because Jesus has him going as low as you can go.

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Eating pig's food is as low as you can go or trying to eat pig's food. Now, let's just step away from the story for just a minute and ask ourselves, because this is essentially a story about repentance and grace, grace actually being the dominant theme here, but there's a lot we can learn from the story.

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And what's one thing that we can learn right out of the gate? I think one of the interesting lessons of the story is that sin usually, if not always, goes from a faulty view of God, and another way you could say it is not only a faulty view of God, but are refusing to believe in the goodness of God.

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This boy had everything. He had his father. He wasn't without anything. He needed it.

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He needed the irrationality of sin, but he had a faulty understanding of God, and it was also a refusal to believe in, because of course the father, Jesus will eventually describe the father as God. Let me make this clear, the boy's problem was not in his sense of adventure.

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There's nothing wrong. You know, we've all got kids, you know, when you look at your different children, one is pushing the envelope, has a great sense of adventure, that's okay. The problem was, is thinking of God as a celestial scrooge.

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As an ogre, God is not saying whatever you do don't have fun. Oh my goodness, that makes me so nervous. That is not what God is like. Know what Jesus is saying here, is we discover who God is, not, and we discover who we truly

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are, and this is what we've got to teach those kids that push the envelope. We discover who we truly are, not in our position to God, but in surrender to God's loving and gracious will. That's what sets us free, because he was misconstruing what freedom was.

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He thought freedom was no more thou shalt nots, what he didn't understand is freedom always comes by truly obeying God's gracious will. To know God and to police God, that's what makes us free, and that's what Jesus taught. You know, Sim promises so much, it delivers so little.

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So what's our first lesson from the story? Sim doesn't make us free. It always leads us to the pig's thigh. So then Jesus, going back to the story, astonishes the crowd and he tells them what they didn't

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want to hear, and that is that the boy suddenly came to his senses. I love that phrase, because you hear it with Nebuchadnezzar. It is the classic way the Bible talks about repentance, coming to your senses. It's a biblical way of saying he repented.

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He changed direction. He saw things differently, and he decides he was wrong and his father was right. And so he says, "How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death.

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I will go out, I'll go back to my father and say, and he makes three statements, two or correct, one is wrong. Here's the first correct statement. "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you."

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"Absolutely true." He has. "Second statement, I am no longer worthy to be called your son, absolutely true." He does it deserve it to be reinstated because he's sinned.

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He's absolutely correct in his diagnosis. It's his solution that is faulty. "Therefore, make me one of your hired men," that's the end of the speech. He rehearses the speech in the field.

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His diagnosis is faulty because what he's really saying is, "Let me earn this. Let me pay you off. Let me earn my way back." Now, again, I want to step away from the story for just a minute and say, "First of all,

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what is repentance?" And we talk the other day about steps towards repentance, but what is the nature of repentance? It's coming to our senses. What does it really mean to repent?

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Two things. First is a change in our thinking, and secondly, it's a change in our behavior. It's important to understand that because people often think it's just changing behavior. It must first come here, the transformation of the renewal of our mind.

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To change thinking is to change the way we perceive reality. There is an objective nature to reality because we live in a morally constructed universe that was created by God. And so when we come to our senses, it means we are saying, "Wait a minute.

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My thinking is wrong. I need to agree with God. God made this universe. I need to agree with Him. Then I'm going to have to change my behavior."

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That is why you have heard it said, "You really can't break the law." The law is, God's truth is, you just break yourself. The laws can't be broken. You break yourself.

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So what you see in this speech is exactly what repentance is. He comes to his senses. He begins seeing reality all right. And he goes from his twisted thinking to actually understanding God's ways.

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Then he gets up and he moves and starts going home. Now that's one thing. What is repentance? A change in the way of thinking, a change in behavior.

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Second thing I want to ask is we step away from the story a minute. What causes people to repent? Oh, if only we knew. That's the $64,000 question.

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The real question is, why do people go in misery for so long? And they don't turn back in surrender. If only we knew you think, "Well, you can't get worse, it can't get worse," and it still gets worse.

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It's a great mystery as to what finally causes somebody to repent. Now, in the case of the prodigal son, he had to lose everything. He had to experience the consequences of his choices. He had to feel the disgust and despair.

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But here's the part that interests me. There's a positive side to this boy's repentance that touches me very much. It wasn't only being very hungry, which was really the primary motive, but it wasn't just that.

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It wasn't merely sorrow for where is what life was, so that was an important part of it. It was also the memory of a better place. And I think that it was his father's influence from afar that helped him remember. Now that homesickness, that sense, surely life is meant to be better than this.

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Surely it can't be like this, is that all there is? That homesickness has been placed in us in every human soul by God Himself. It has been planted in us, and we've got to take those feelings very, very seriously. They've been put there by God.

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It's our soul longing for its true home. Now, this isn't a parable, a treatise on how to raise adult children who fall off the rails. What do we do with a boy who needs to go into recovery? That's not what this parable is about.

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Nevertheless, I have to say, did you notice that the father didn't run after his adult child? Did you notice that the father didn't try to protect him from the consequences of his bad choices?

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Everything in us as parents wants to bail out our kids, wants to keep them from experiencing the consequences of their bad choices. And I think one thing we learn here is that God pursues us. He calls us, but He will not violate our will or our freedom.

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Our adult children must decide anybody, must decide and repent and turn. So I need to say here, parenthetically, if I'm speaking to someone who has a child who has lost their way, and that has got to be a grand child, then it's one of the most painful things in life.

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But I think there's a few things I can say here based on this story. Number one, pray for homesickness. Pray that they will be not only homesick for the influence they had in your home. If that was the case, maybe you became Christians later in life.

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But pray they will be homesick for God, even if they don't know what it is. You can pray so intelligently and effectively. Pray for a homesickness. May I say a second thing?

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Get rid of the guilt. Get rid of your guilt. None of us are perfect parents. There is only one perfect parent in the universe.

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And that is God. And if you are living out of guilt, you are not going to be modeling the freedom and the joy they need to see. They can easily, a child, an adult child can easily manipulate a parent who is living

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out of guilt. If there are things you did wrong, and all of us have done things, we wish we had done differently. You bring it to the cross, you give it to the Lord, and now you walk in joy.

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You don't let the devil take away your joy. Get rid of the guilt, confess it. And then remember, and I know you know this, but we have to remind ourselves, God loves our children so much more than we do.

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And He is as passionately committed to seeing them become whole as we are. So pray without ceasing and be patient. Read Psalm 62, so wonderful, God alone, and God alone, my soul and silence waits. We have to go back to the story, Jesus tells the crowd that the sun starts the journey

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back home because he is repentant. Now, what is the crowd expecting? Oh, they can't wait for that sun to show up, you know, because what are they thinking? Not so fast.

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You think you are going to walk in here, there are no freebies, there are no handouts. What they were expecting was either that he would be stoned to death or that he would be excommunicated or the best I could hope for is to say, oh, you're not going to come back here.

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You go and work in the manure pile for a couple of years, and then maybe we'll see. But you're going to earn your way back. And now Jesus paints a picture of the Father, a picture of God that no one would have ever imagined or dreamed.

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It absolutely scandalized them. They were astonished because Jesus is not only telling us who God the Father is, it is the most beautiful picture of God, I think, in all of scripture. And what does he say, while the boy was a long way off, his father saw him, and he was

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filled with compassion and he ran to his son and he threw his arms around him and he kissed him. Now, what does this mean? Well, the one since we have first, while the boy was a long way off, the Father, the implication

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of the Father is he is walking, he is praying, he is concerned for this child. And what I love is even a long way away, and remember what that boy would have looked on, he would look terrible. Even a long way off the Father knows, oh, that's my son, that's how intimately we are

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known by God, no matter how much sin has damaged what we look like, he sees the person that we were created to be. And Jesus said he had compassion and he runs to the boy. Now, of course, you know this, a patriarch, we'd never run.

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That would have been shameful, it would have been embarrassing. He would have never had to pick up his skirts, reveal something of his legs, oh, that would you, I mean, Jesus keeps shocking them more and more. They thought they'd had enough with what the boy was like.

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Now they're so stunned by the Father and he runs and throws his arms around him and kisses him and kisses him. And I love what T. Leica says. T. Leica says it's a Bible teacher.

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He said it's the only time in the Bible we ever see God in a hurry. And maybe also he was running, not only out of joy to see the Son, but to protect him from the community, that was very intent on punishing him. And now the Son starts to speech.

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He starts, and remember, there's three parts, the last one's wrong. He says, "Father, I've sent, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, but before you can say the third thing, which would have been an error, and that is, I'm going to work it off, the Father interrupts him, doesn't even let him repent fully."

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And it's as if he's saying, "Yes, I know you have repented. You wouldn't be back home if you didn't want to reestablish relationship. It is serious what you've done. You've been terribly wrong, but you've seen it or you wouldn't come back home."

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What matters is that you've repented and you're home. And now let's throw a pardon. Repentance. This admitting that we are wrong is always the way back home to God's grace.

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There is no other way. It is only repentance. What was interesting to me here is you see the backdrop of repentance. Repentance is very, very serious, but the backdrop to repentance is always joy.

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What does Jesus say? Repent the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent deal with what's wrong so you can enter into all the life. I love that sense of repent, the kingdom of God is at hand, quits staying in this old life

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and begin to participate in the new. So what is the second lesson we learn? The second lesson we learn is that repentance is the only pathway to grace. Repentance is our God-given right to admit we're wrong.

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That is what repentance says in the Father orders the servants to prepare a party. And every single thing He does and the way He dresses this boy all had profound Middle Eastern symbolism. Bring the best robe.

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Of course, every home, even poor homes had the best robe that they would give to an honored guest, it's a culture of hospitality. And so to not be hospitable was a great sin in Middle Eastern culture. But this is a wealthy man.

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And so he would have had a great robe. And so he puts the robe on this most honored guest. He goes bring the ring. Ring is really a tremendous symbol because it's the insignia in the ring you belong to me.

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This is saying your family. You belong to the great royal forever family. Put shoes on its feet, the sign of a freed man, not a slave in bondage anymore. Kill the fatted calf.

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They rarely ate meat and meat in that culture only on special occasions. This would have probably been the greatest party that village had ever experienced before. And why are we doing the party because my son was lost and now he's found. And there was music and dancing.

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What an amazing thing. Jesus is saying to us, don't you understand when you came to God, when you gave your life to Christ, do you realize angels rejoiced? There was a party in heaven, balloons were flying.

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I don't know what celestial balloons would look like. But he is saying, don't, do you realize that? But this is what God is like, a celebratory God who where the angels are singing and all of choir is rejoicing.

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That is what God is like. And did you notice that the father doesn't say, oh, in bitterness, I hope you've learned your lesson. I mean, do you have any idea what you put your me through?

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He said, oh, my beloved son, in essence, I am so grateful you are home. I have waited, I have long for you, you are so welcome. That is the nature and character of God and you as the crowd are absolutely speechless. You are stunned.

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You can't believe it because you're asking yourselves, well, what was the entrance fee? What was the entrance fee to this boy coming home? Wasn't his spiritual maturity? It wasn't even a profound repentance today, the truth.

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It was your, what I would call your basic stomach repentance. He was hungry, you know, and he was really sorry. But this isn't the most profound repentance story you'll see in the Bible. Did he earn his way back through paying good deeds?

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Know what Jesus says, our ability to come home is based solely on the amazing scandalous grace of God and our repentance, our recognition of sin. There is nothing we could do to earn our right to come into this welcome home party. Now once you do imagine you're a neighbor and this is a wealthy man, kind of the Lord

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of the village as it were, and you're walking by there at a distance and all you can see is from the back and you notice the robe, the beautiful robe for the most honored guest is on, is on this person, and then you see that he is gesturing with his hand and you see the ring, the insignia on the ring.

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You see the shoes on the feet, you see the biggest party the village has ever had. Every single symbol adds up and you go, I know who it is, it's royalty. It is the king's son, it's the prince. It is royalty.

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Now you just say, I wonder if I could get an autograph, I'm a little bit of a celebrity hound and oh, it would be so wonderful, I'll just say it's for my kids. And so you walk up and you say to the father and you get closer and you look at the father's face, you realize you've never seen the father so much emotion in his face, tears are in

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his eyes and you think, oh, this is it, this is it. I am going to meet royalty. And you come up to the father and say, I just wondered if I could have a little autograph from your honored guest, I'd be so thrilled.

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The father said, I would be delighted. And so this person turns slowly around and what you see is so shocking that you become a little nauseous. Because in this gorgeous royal robe and the ring and the shoes is a man so emaciated,

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so thin, skin barely hangs over his bones. He looks jaundice, he looks like he may have a disease. He looks horrifying, all the more dressed in these robes. What is Jesus saying to us here?

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The first thing he's saying is we are all sinners. No matter how well we clean up, all of us would look diseased in our sin next to the presence of a holy God for all of sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us can stand and recite our good deeds and demand on that basis.

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We get to come to the welcome home party. We are all sinners. What is the next thing Jesus is teaching? We may be sinners, but oh, we are loved.

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He loves us and God will pursue us until we draw our last breath. And when we come in repentance, what does he do? Dress us in his royal robes of righteousness. Gives us all the, his character, the fruit of the spirit.

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He delights because of our faith in Jesus Christ and because he went to the cross and rose again. We are going to become like him. So what is lesson three?

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Humans are more broken and sinful than we could have ever imagined and more loved and cherished than we ever dreamed possible. Now what would the prodigal son of preferred? The truth is, it had to be hard on his pride to have been dressed this lavishly.

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I think secretly he would have preferred here and go and work off your debts, earn your way back. What is the problem with that solution? It always encourages our pride.

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Because if he had gone to the manure pile for a couple of years, come back and he would say, oh my goodness, it was so hard, it was so difficult, but I worked so hard and now I am here. Now I deserve this audience.

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Now I deserve a welcome home party. You see, that's every religion in the world except Christianity. Every religion in the world says, I do this, you owe me. I'll give you my little list of what I've done and now you owe me.

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The truth is, it is only Christianity that is a religion of grace and the truth is we resist grace. We resist unmerited, unearned love of God, why we resist grace because grace always exposes our poverty.

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We have to confess there is nothing we could ever do to earn God's forgiveness. God owes us nothing, we owe him everything and is offered to forgive. Our sins is a free unmerited gift of grace. So what is the thing we must learn no matter, and I guess this would be lesson four.

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No matter how unworthy we feel, no matter how much shame we have, God's grace is always greater than our worth sin. And then, just when you think, okay, wow, I learned a lot and you think the story is over. Jesus does the thing that you most wouldn't expect.

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He brings in the elder brother and what he was trying to show us here is sin is more complex than you might think. Sin is more devious than you might understand. The elder brother comes, he hears music and dancing, he's told the reason for the party.

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He's very angry and he refuses to come to the party. So just as the father ran to meet the prodigal son, he runs now and begs his elder son to come to the party. And now we begin with, we know the boy has been obedient.

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He stayed at home, he did everything right. And now we find out what's in his heart. All these years I slave for you, never disobeyed and you never gave me a party. But when this son of yours, not my brother, when this son of yours comes, squandered his

00:38:07.480 - 00:38:17.400

money on prostitutes. He's clearly been doing a little recon, recon, recon, recon doing a little, what's another word? Yeah.

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Exactly. So now he knows what the son's been doing, his brother has been doing. He said, and one of the fathers say, my son, you are always with me, everything I have is yours.

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I had to celebrate for your brother was dead and now it's alive. Now we get to see another kind of sin. The lostness of the prodigal son, that's so easy. That is drug sex and rock and roll.

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I mean, that is lost, greed, misspent, youth, the sins of the flesh. But now Jesus is showing us the elder brother's lostness was actually much more hidden on the surface. He was obedient and he did everything right, didn't miss church, had his devotions.

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But remember what I said to you from the very beginning, what was Jesus saying when he came on earth, the kingdom of God is about love relationships. Nothing is more important, loving God with every part of your being, loving your neighbor as yourself.

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What do we see right away? He is absolutely violated what the kingdom of God is all about. A life full of religious activity, but his primary love relationships were terrible. He didn't love his father and he didn't love his brother.

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What was wrong with his relationship to his brother? What was his chief complaint? He was furious that the father gave him a party and he said, and actually accurately said that party is too good for the likes of that boy.

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That's true. But he also missed that party was also too good for the likes of the elder brother. Where the elder brother was so blind as he didn't see his own sin. He didn't have the sins of the flesh, but oh my did he have the sins of the spirit, judgmental,

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critical, self-righteous, and refusing relationship with his brother. But the worst of course was his relationship with his father. Here was the primary problem with the elder brother. Yes, he obeyed his father.

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But he obeyed God's laws without ever falling in love with the lawgiver. He totally misunderstood the nature and character of God. God wanted a loving, intimate relationship in which we obey and serve out of joy. Instead of joyful abandonment and obeying his father, he cautiously obeyed God for what

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he might get out of the deal. That's what religion is like. Not what Christianity is like. I obey therefore God owes me.

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I earn my way, therefore I am proud and God had better do something on my behalf. By the way, why was he so angry? Some think it's that his idol was money, and that why he's so angry is a third of the estate has already been squandered.

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Now the boy is reinstated, does that mean the boy is going to get some of his money? It's an interesting idea, but I think the far more serious thing is he never understood his father. He never understood himself.

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And instead, in fact, you know what the great irony of this story is? Both boys had an equally faulty view of God. Both of them misunderstood the nature and character of God. Both boys, both sons, were lost.

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One was guilty of the sins of the flesh, the other the sins of the spirit. Both broke relationship with the father. Both broke relationship with the faith community. He wouldn't come back.

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He wouldn't go to the party. But the most sobering thing to me about this story is only one repented. And that was the protocol. The sense we have of the elder brother is that he went out into the night.

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There is no indication in this passage that the elder brother came and repented. Here's how it should have gone. Here's what should have happened. He should have come into that party.

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He should have set next to his brother and said, you know, we really look different, don't we? Here I am in my Brooks Brothers robe. I don't know if you have Brooks Brothers, but it would be some high designer robe and my

00:42:52.000 - 00:43:05.800

Gucci sandals. And I look so good. I clean up well, don't I? But the truth is, I may not have lived the sins of the flesh, but I sure have been guilty

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of the sins of the spirit. I've been self-righteous, proud, judgmental, critical. And the truth is, it's easier to admit your flaws when you look like you, instead of when you look like me, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

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I have needed my father's forgiveness every bit as much as you have. God's love has never failed me. So let's go celebrate dad's goodness to both. Oh, if only that could have been the case.

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What enables the self-righteous and the self-indulgent to come to God's welcome home party? It is Jesus, Jesus alone. How is it possible because the amazing news of the gospel is that Jesus came from heaven, not as the prodigal son, but as an obedient son?

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He came as the true elder brother, who obeyed not because he was forced to, but now or not what he could get out of the deal, but he came because he loved us. And what is the lesson that we learn? Jesus became homeless on the cross so that we could find our home.

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Where are you, as you listen to this story, do you have prodigal tendencies? One of the things that we know about this boy, which we know about human behavior, is that he experienced the glory of God's grace, but the truth is, he will have to work for the rest of his life on dealing with his proclivities to sin.

00:44:52.000 - 00:45:14.600

He's going to have to deal with his impulsivity, wanting to do things his way. He's going to have to deal with his self-indulgence and put it under the cross. He will have moments of shame going, "Oh, I blow a third of the inheritance," and then he's going to cling to the cross and say, "I will not live in that sorrow God has transformed

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me." But the elder brother is going to have to repent first, and then he's going to have to deal with his proclivity to a judgmental, critical spirit. His tendency to always want to say, "I'm right and you're wrong."

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He's going to have to learn not to tie his worth to performance and to learn how to live in amazing grace. What is the message I want to give you? Let's be like the waiting father.

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Let's have churches that are like the waiting father that welcomes the stranger, that refuses to give up on people that knows there is nothing impossible for God. I want to close with a story, can I do that? I know we're just, I want to close with a story of what I believe we're really supposed

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to look like as the waiting father. When I was on staff with inner varsity, I worked at this very, very academic college as I told you, the kids were just brilliant. At my very first day, I met a boy who would become a Christian.

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Let me describe what he looked like. In all the four years that Bill went to college, he was majoring in medicine and music. He had the same pair of jeans for four years. He had a T-shirt full of holes, wore the same T-shirt.

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His hair stuck out like he'd put his finger in an electric socket and the hair had never left and he never wore a pair of shoes in the whole four years. He was at ring college. He became a Christian.

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The first Sunday rolled around and he went, "Hmm, I wonder what it is that Christians do on Sunday. I bet they go to church." He had no church background.

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He goes, "That's cool. I'll go to church." I happen to know the church he went to is right across his Portland, Oregon, right across the street from where he goes in to the church, he's late.

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He notices everybody has suits and ties and they're all, he thought they were uptight, but they really were just formal and quite dignified and all that. He walks in, remembered no shoes, jeans, wild hair, and I always felt that some of the other older people in the church thought, "First of all, not only who is it, what is it?"

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He starts walking down the aisle. They're singing a hymn. They're a little uptight and of course what they didn't realize is he was utterly harmless. So Bill starts waving to everybody.

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They didn't do that there and so he's like, "Hey, how you doing, piece?" And they're freaking out. He gets down, couldn't find a place to sit. It was all full.

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He gets down to the front and he sits down on the carpet waiting for the show to begin. Now, that had never happened in the history of that church. He sits down and everybody's really uncomfortable and the minister is walking up to preach his sermon.

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As he's walking up to preach his sermon, he notices way in the back is an elderly deacon making his way towards Bill. He had a three-piece suit, a little pocket watch, he would always say, "How do you do?" He was from another planet as far as Bill was concerned.

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He had a cane, a walking stick. So it took him a really long time and I was told everybody was angry. How dare this boy enter the house of God, just respecting us and just respecting the Lord? The man, it seemed to take an eternity for that man to get down behind Bill.

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But everybody told me they were all thinking the same thing. How can you blame him? How can you blame him for what he's about to do? How can you expect this elderly deacon to, you know, not be upset with this hippie-free

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when he finally got behind Bill. Now Bill didn't see him. When he finally got behind Bill, I was told it was so tense you could hear a tissue drop on the floor.

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And as everyone is saying, "You can't blame him for what he's going to do," that elderly deacon took his walking stick and dropped it on the carpet. And then with great difficulty, he lowered himself to the carpet and worshiped with that boy for an hour on the floor.

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And I was told that everyone wept. And the minister said, "What I'm about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget." Because it's always like that when you see Jesus.

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If you get even a glimpse, it changes you forever. And he said, "I want to begin this morning by praying and thanking God for grace. The grace that says, 'I've waited for you. I've longed for you.

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I am so glad you are home.' What my prayer is for you. Here in Sydney and in the areas beyond, be like the waiting Father. Be like that elderly deacon.

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Give His grace day after day and then be agents of grace yourself. There are so many walking on the road alone who need you to walk beside them with the presence of Jesus. Lord, we thank You for this weekend together.

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We thank You for the amazing grace of the gospel. So thank You that there is nothing we could do to earn our way. But it is a free gift of grace because You sent Your Son to die for us. Lord, we ask that You make us more like Jesus and use us in a world that desperately needs

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the love of Christ and the gospel. We love You and we praise You in Jesus' name, Amen.