Come To Life (Week 2)

We moved to Kentucky.

Born in Alabama, short stint in Mississippi for four years, and at six years old, we moved to Kentucky to Shelbyville.

And I don't have a ton of memories from being that young in Alabama and Mississippi, just a few.

But one of the memories that I do have is as we were preparing to move from Mississippi to Kentucky, we were able to uh with my dad's job, uh they brought movers in to help us move.

So all these guys uh came into the house and began packing up all the boxes.

And for me and my brother, the chaos in the house was a great opportunity for us to play a favorite game, hide and seek.

All these boxes are stacked up in every room.

It was like it was like a whole house worth of a castle was already made for us.

So we were hiding behind the boxes and going in different places, and we were just playing and playing and playing.

And uh I uh decided that I was gonna go to the next level of my hiding, and so I went into the bathroom, and again, I'm six years old, I'm super small.

I get under the cabinets that are under the sink.

I get in the cabinets that are under the sink, and I'm hiding there in the bathroom.

This is like the best spot ever.

Nobody's gonna find me.

While as I'm hiding under the sink, all of a sudden one of the mover guys comes into the bathroom.

You can see where this might be going.

I'm under the sink, I'm peering out, it's in there.

I I I'm too afraid, his little six-year-old, to pop out and scare him.

And so I'm hiding there under the sink as he's doing his business, thankfully, quickly.

And I did not want to be found.

Now I know that um the whole point of the game of hide and seek is not to be found, but that time I really didn't want to be found.

He washed his hands and walked out of the bathroom, and I will never forget that.

Never forget.

It's like a memory seared in my mind.

I was like a secret spy there underneath the sink with nobody knew where I was.

And, you know, there are times in life where we are hidden and we want to be found.

There's other times when we need to be found, but we're lost, and we desperately need somebody to find us.

We've been in this sermon series come to life.

And last week we jumped into the very beginning of Jesus' ministry.

When he was baptized by his cousin John the Baptist, and the way was being prepared for him.

And today, as we talk about the snapshot in the picture, in a picture of Jesus' ministry, right kind of in the middle of his ministry, we think about what it means to be lost and found.

Now, you know, something that I was it occurred to me as I was thinking about lost and found.

You know, every school has, you know, one that one box that's there next to the closet that's the lost and found.

It's just got a treasure trove of different things that people have abandoned.

But you know what?

In a lost and found, you never see like a penny in there or a stick of gum.

Why?

Because it doesn't have any value.

For something that actually wants to be found, it actually has to have a little bit of value to it for somebody to want to find it.

And I know for us that there are times that we can be at a place where we feel like that we are lost, and there's somebody who wants to find us because we have the value to be found, because he loves us deeply and dearly.

Our God.

Daniel Boone, we all know in Kentucky famously, said, I've never been lost, but I have been confused for a couple of days.

We don't know that we are lost until we know that we're lost.

And Jesus tells us, and when he talks about being lost and found, it's not just like, you know, the umbrella that or the jacket that's left in the lost and found bin.

It has eternal implications.

And not just to be lost and found, but to move from death to life.

Jesus in the story that we're going to talk about today.

The scripture in Luke 15 says that there were sinners and notorious sinners who were coming to listen to Jesus preach, and they were flocking to him, and the religious leaders, the Pharisees, they could not stand it.

The Bible says they were angry that these sinners were coming to Jesus and were hearing his teaching.

And so, if in front of all of them, he tells a series of parables.

These parables is a small story with a big truth.

And he tells a story about a sheep that's lost, and that the shepherd went to go and leave the 99 and find the one.

Then he tells a story about a woman and a lost coin that she tears through the house just to find this one coin that she had lost.

And then he comes to this story about the lost son.

It's called the prodigal son.

It's a story that's very famous.

You've probably heard it before.

You're going to see that it probably could be called the prodigal sons, not just one.

But the way that this story begins, Jesus tells the fact that this son comes to a father, and he asks his father if he can go ahead and have his inheritance now before his father dies.

Now, in the Jewish tradition, an inheritance would come to the older brother.

Now, the inheritance would only come after the father had passed away.

And so in this younger son's uh misguided arrogance, he comes to his dad and says, Hey, I want my inheritance now.

Basically looking at his dad and saying, I wish you were dead.

I don't want you anymore, Dad.

I just want what you have and can give me.

Can you give me my one-third of your possessions now?

Now, what his possessions as the father normally is, most of people's wealth was in their land.

And so likely what would have had to happen is that this father would have to have sold off a third of his property, his wealth, his land to give to his son.

And so his son is looking at his dad and saying, uh, Dad, I want you to tear your life apart.

I want you to tear your life apart and give a portion to me.

We pick up the story in Luke 15, chapter 11, 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, this son packed up all his belongings and moved to a distant land.

And there he wasted all his money and wild living.

About the time that his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve.

He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs.

The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him.

But no one gave him anything.

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.

This young man asks his dad for his share of the inheritance.

He immediately takes the share of the inheritance, and following his evil desires, he goes off and begins to party hard.

He runs off to Vegas for some wild living and a wild time.

And we all know that the fun that can come, so to speak, of wild living and sinfulness eventually it runs out.

And sin ends up taking us farther than we ever wanted to go.

And so this son finds himself out of money, in a field, taking care of pigs, which is, if you know about the Jewish tradition, it wouldn't even eat pigs, so let alone to be in a field and feeding pigs.

He's hit rock bottom.

He's hit rock bottom.

And eventually, there feeding the pigs and in the slop, the Bible says that he came to his senses.

Now what the Greek literally says is he came to himself.

He came to himself.

You know, when you think about somebody who passed out, knocked out, in a coma, what do we say?

We say, oh, he came to.

Well, finally, he came to.

And so for this young man, he's out there in the field and he finally comes to.

He finally wakes up to the fact that he has squandered everything and that even the servants back in his home, that they are living better than he is now, and he finally wakes up and comes to.

And I wonder, is there anybody here today that needs to wake up and come to who God is and what he has for you today?

Amen.

Love to sleep in a coma of sin and shame and separation, following desires and following what you think is a path that's gonna lead to fun and lead to a great time.

And today you need to wake up and come to your senses.

Somebody today needs to come to.

How do he do that?

Well, he did it right here.

He changed his mind.

The direction I'm going in, the path that I'm going down, where my life has led me to, I need to change.

Something has got to give, and so then he devises a plan.

He says, Okay, I'm gonna go home.

I'm gonna plead with my father to make me like a servant so that I can pay him back.

So I can give him restitution, so I can restore all this wealth that I have squandered.

Even though I don't even deserve to be like a hired hand.

Verse 18, his plan.

I'll go home to my father and say, Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Please take me on as a hired servant.

So we returned home 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.

The son has his plan.

I'm gonna go back to my dad.

I'm gonna pay him back.

I'm gonna have, I'm gonna pay my restitution.

I'm gonna become a hired servant from a long way off.

The father had no interest in him paying him back.

The father had no interest in the restitution.

Instead, he just saw his son and he ran to his son with compassion and love.

And now I think about me as a father, and I think about my little girl.

If she had gone off to a distant land and had squandered her life away, and if I saw her coming towards me, you know what I would be doing?

I would be running to my daughter to say, Come on, baby, thanks for coming home.

We love you.

I don't need anything from you, but but but but come home into my arms, and that's what the father does for the son.

Can't pay him back.

But instead, the father grants him his place back.

He grants him his place back.

Verse 21.

His son said to him, Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you.

Let's begin the party.

There may be some younger sons in the house today.

There are people in our church who could tell you by way of their testimony what it's like to be trapped in a lifestyle of drugs, sin, hardship, and what it's like when you wake up and come to God and let Him take hold of you and receive you into His arms and love you to salvation.

And that's the part of the story that Jesus tells, and everybody in the crowd is listening to him, and it would be like, you know, just the feeling that I just had reading this passage, it's like, you know, the tears well up in the eyes, thinking about this younger son and him being restored, but Jesus doesn't stop the story there.

He then talks about the older brother.

In verse 25.

Meanwhile, the older brother was in the fields working.

When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on.

Your brother is back.

He was told, and your father has killed the fattened calf.

We are celebrating because his safe return.

The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in.

His father came out and begged him, but he replied, All these years I've slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to.

And all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends.

Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate him by killing the fatted calf.

At this time, Jewish tradition and life at the time, it was a delicacy to eat meat.

Many of the food, many of the dinners and the meals that they ate, the meat was reserved for special occasions, and especially so the fattened calf.

This is like you don't ever butcher, you don't ever, you don't ever kill the fattened calf unless something really special has happened.

And the son, the older brother, hears this party going on, and he he rolls up on the party and he asks, What's going on?

And somebody says, Your brother has returned, and then immediately he's filled with anger, jealousy, contempt, upset.

What do you mean?

A brother who tore our family apart, my brother who's brought shame to our family name?

He's back, and all this is going on.

And he looks at the father who asked him to go into the party, and he looks at his father, and he says, This son of yours.

He won't even call him his brother.

He won't even say my brother.

He says, your son.

Verse 31, the father said to him, Look, dear son, I've always looked dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours.

We had to celebrate this happy day.

For your brother was dead and has come back to life.

He was lost, and now he is found.

Older brother.

Older brother.

Isn't everything right?

He's done life by the books.

He's always worked hard, stuck by his father, done everything that he feels like he should have done.

He stands back and he says, you know what?

This whole time I've been a good person.

I've been a good person, and my brother out here has squandered everything, has been filled with sin, all while I've been here doing exactly what I should have been doing.

And instead of having a heart to receive his brother home, he looks in judgment and thinks only of himself.

There may be some older brothers in the house today.

There may be some older brothers in the house today.

Maybe that you're a believer and you've done everything.

You feel like by the book and you've been good your whole life.

You feel like other people that maybe even your own family has stolen and taken from you, and it's difficult for you to celebrate life change in somebody else, or to even think about them coming to Christ because of judgmental and selfish spirit inside of you.

Maybe there's some older brothers in the house today because you're not a Christian, you're not a believer in Jesus, but you think that you're a good person.

You think that, you know, you know, I haven't done this, I haven't done that, like I'm a good person, like everything's gonna work out for me.

I I don't really need this religion stuff, I don't really need God, I don't need all that.

That's just for weak people, like I'm a good person.

And so with me being a good person, I'm sure it's all gonna work out in the end because I'm a good person.

I heard a pastor say one that we think that God wants good people, but he wants new people.

He wants new people.

John 5 21.

I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life, they will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.

First John 3 14.

If we love our brothers and sisters who are believers, it proves that we have passed from death to life, but a person who has no love is still dead.

Second Corinthians 5 15.

He died for everyone, so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves, but instead they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

1952, a man named Jim Becker came back from the Korean War, and he was a a huge Green Bay Packer fan.

Loved the Green Bay Packers, and it was his desire that he would go to as many games that he could, but there was just one wrinkle in uh In the plan is that he had 11 kids.

Whew, man.

So there wasn't a whole lot of extra money for him to go and get tickets.

And so what he started to do was week in and week out, he would go and give blood at the blood center.

And at the time, they were it was$15 for a pint of blood that they would give him, and he would take that money, and then he would buy tickets.

There would be plenty enough money for him to buy a few tickets to go to each game.

And he would go to games week in and week out.

He was a huge fan and was always there.

And he was by way of taking his blood, giving the money, they'd give him the money, give him getting the tickets, and he would go and scout the tickets every time and go to the game, and he did this for 20 years.

He did this for 20 years.

What?

20 years later, he's at a doctor's appointment and talking with his doctor, and his doctor informs him that he has what's called Celtic disease.

It's kind of the slang term for it.

But basically, what it is is that there's an overabundance of iron in your blood.

And so over time, the iron that is in your blood, it it uh collects into your vital organs and eventually your vital organs fail.

This is what happened to his father.

His father just got feeling sick one day, and the next day his vital organs failed.

And what they told him was, they told him was that because over the last 20 years he had been going and giving blood every single week, that it had taken the excess iron out of his blood and it was keeping him alive.

And so his big fandom for the Green Bay Packers actually ended up saving his life.

But not only that, his giving of blood for somebody else, it saved his life too.

I don't know if you know this, but 2,000 years ago, Jesus went to the cross and gave his blood so that you could have life and be new.

That you could receive from the Father.

You know, church.

The older brothers in the house.

We continue to exist to bring grace and peace to those far from God through Jesus Christ.

There are gonna be people who are not gonna be happy about it.

There are gonna be folks who say, You shouldn't do it that way.

Why in the world would you meet in a movie theater?

Why would you start a church?

Why would you do this?

Why would you do that?

That's too much work.

Can't do that.

Because we know the one that if we go and receive his blood, we can have new life, that we can go not from bad to good, but from death to life in the name of Jesus.

And we want to see more people be able to do that, and we're gonna be willing to give our blood, sweat, and tears to see people come to the faith, grace, and peace that they can receive in Christ.

Older brothers, we're doing this thing.

And for the younger brothers in the house, God so desperately wants for you to come to, to wake up, to turn, to make a decision, that you're gonna stop running away and trying to do life your own way, but instead that you would run to the Father, and he's waiting for you with open arms to receive you to come in.

I gotta tell you guys this story from this last week, and I'm kind of still on a little thunder, but I just can't not tell you.

A couple of weeks ago, Sally Salem, where's Sally in the house?

A couple of weeks ago, Sally came to us and said that she was going to get uh uh uh some tests done on her heart because uh of a uh hereditary thing that many people have.

It's very common where you have a small hole in your heart.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

This is a very common thing, and it's very kind of in some ways routine, but she was asking for us to pray for her because it was gonna have to have a surgery and procedure, and she was going to get these tests.

And when she brought it up, I thought about somebody that we went to college with, a guy named Brad, who he had this same condition that was keeping him from going to the mission field.

And so his country church down in Monticello, Kentucky, came around him and prayed over him, and God miraculously healed him.

And I said to Sally, you know what?

Hey, God did it for Brad, he can do it for you.

Like, let's let's pray together.

We can pray over you right now for God to work and he can do this thing.

So early this week, Sally went to the doctor's appointment.

They had the test set up, a bubble test where they took a scan of her heart, she saw the hole in the heart, and then they would inject bubbles to see the bubbles go from one of the valves into the other valve to confirm it.

And when they did the bubble test, the bubbles didn't go.

The doctors and nurse, they didn't really know what to do.

They they they were wondering, like, oh, wait, this doesn't make any sense.

Let's take you back and let's look at your heart again and scan it again.

And they pulled up the scan the second time and the hole was gone.

The nurse, the nurse took Sally's hand and looked at her and said, This is miraculous.

We've never seen this before.

A couple of days later, the doctor called and confirmed it.

The hole is gone.

Do you know, church, that each one of us we have a hole in our heart that God so desperately wants to fill to make us whole, and he wants to do that for you today.

That God would continue to work powerfully because he's not a God that's standing by, that's far off, that's waiting for you, and when they see he is waiting for you, and he's going to run to you when you begin to come to him to receive you so that you can walk in the glorious life that he has for you.

That you can see God move powerfully in your life, and things happen that you can't even explain in other people's can either because of the power of God.

And as we walk into Easter next week, I'm believing that God is going to move powerfully in our midst because he is the God of miracles.

And one more thing, church, God can move in power by a prayer session in the middle of the week and not in the center of a service.

You don't have to be coming up for what why do we think that it has to happen in a service for somebody to come up and pray for somebody for God to do the miraculous?

He'll do it as we walk in our daily life if we're walking in him.

The gifts and the miraculous doesn't always need an audience.

But when you're walking in him, a church that's moving from death to life.

You may be here today and you're still dead.

You may be the one that the scripture speaks of that has no love.

You may be have gone to church for a long time, but you're an older brother and you have no love for somebody else.

But instead, you're going to prove that you move from death to life by the way that you love other people.

And the love that goes out from you.

Not just to your house, not just to your family, but to other believers that we don't even know yet to come to faith in Christ.

In our midst, you're gonna love people well by serving his church here at Multiply.

You know, right now, there are people who are over here and kids who are serving and seeing people move from death to life because they are alive in Christ.

They've come to life and the love is pouring out from them.

And those that you have served before, and those that are serving in this worship team and all over this place, that you're pouring out the love of God that more people would come to know Him.

And so today I just want to ask for you to think about who are you in this story?

Who are you in this story?

And it's probably not the Father.

Maybe for some of you, you have a child who has gone away and you are waiting to receive them.

God wants you to love them deeply and love them to the cross.

Will you bow your heads and pray with me?

Father, I pray over each person who's in the room today.

God, I pray for them, Lord, as they think about you, Jesus, and your life and ministry and the work on the cross.

God, I pray right now, Lord, over each person who's here, God, that you would show them, Lord, what the condition of their heart is.

If they're far from you.

With a hole in their life that only God you can fill.

If they k feel like that they're close to you, God, but there's only judgment and selfishness in their life and heart.

God, I pray today, Lord, that if there's anybody in this place who's not moved from death to life, that today would be the day that they come to.

That they pray something like this in your heart and mind, if that's you, pray, Jesus, save me.

I believe that you died on the cross for my sins.

And that you are alive.

Forgive me.

Wash me as white as snow so that I can be in heaven with you one day.

Give me new life in you.

I give you my life as you gave your life for mine.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you prayed that today, you're moving from death to life.

We want to celebrate you.

We want to help you walk in your journey.

Would you stand right now as we close and sing?