Prodigal Son: Be Humble and Rejoice

Well, Father God, we are so thankful to be here this morning for the opportunity to worship

you and sing out your praises.

And Lord, while we come and we celebrate and we rejoice, we realize there are some heavy

hearts and a lot of heavy stuff going on in our lives throughout the week.

And Jesus, we are just reminded that you are the only one who is able.

No matter how much we try, no matter how much effort we put forth, no matter what we're

willing to sacrifice, there's just some things that we cannot do.

We just don't have the strength and the power within us to see things through.

But you are faithful and you're the only one who could plan something even before it all

existed.

Before you created the world, before men fell into sin, Lord, you had a purpose and a plan.

And throughout the thousands of years of this world in existence and people being born

and dying, God, you have remained and you have sustained.

And you are the one who came to purchase our freedom and give us a way to find ourselves

back in your arms.

Only you can do that.

And so God, as we cannot control just various situations and circumstances that are a limited

amount of time here on earth, Jesus, we put our trust and faith in you who is able

to span millennials.

God, you were able to move thousands of years, set a plan in place from the creation of

the world and see it through to the very end.

Only you can do that.

So God, we put our trust and faith in you this morning.

As we come to worship, I pray that we would do that.

I pray we would surrender our hearts to you, that we would humble ourselves before you

and God that there wouldn't be anything that we would close off or hold back.

God help us to be humble and open this morning and let your Holy Spirit in and to change

us into who you want us to be.

And Father, as we gather to worship, we pray for our brothers and sisters who aren't able

to be here.

We ask that you would touch them.

I pray specifically for Mr. Ted this morning and again, Lord, with many tests and many

health issues, Lord, I just pray that you would touch his body.

God, be with the ones who's had surgeries and different moments that they're continuing

to heal from and God, just be with them.

And Lord, as we celebrate the independence of our country this coming week, Lord, we're

just very thankful and blessed to be a part of this nation.

When we think about the entire world that we live in and the fact that all of us were

just born here and the amazing privilege of just being able to come to church this morning

in freedom, and the only worries and cares were what we were going to wear, whether

or not we were going to be there on time, what's going to be for lunch afterward, God,

there are people who are meeting in churches today who are going to be doing it, risking

their lives, hiding, doing it in secret, and Father, we are very blessed and we thank

you so much.

So thankful for the men and women who've died so that we could do what we're doing

here today and live in this great country that we get to live in.

We thank you for that.

Father, as we give ourselves to you this morning, we pray that you would speak to our

hearts and most of all, that you would help us to be at a point where we are willing to

surrender and give ourselves completely to you, but we love you.

We thank you and we ask all this in Jesus precious and holy name and all God's people

said. Amen.

You may be seated.

Feel free to stand up at any time and I'll be more than happy to let you share.

One of the things that I love about Graham is that it's always been a place where

people can feel free to give testimony and praise to the Lord and what the God's

doing in their life.

And it's so much more important that the people in the congregation hear what God is

doing in your life and how he's working and moving in you and through you than it is

for them to hear about how he's doing it in my life and me talking about it all the

time. Because let's be honest, I get paid to do this, but you don't.

So it means a lot more coming from you than it does from me.

But we're in week three and our last week talking about the prodigal son.

And today's sermon is titled Be Humble and Rejoice.

And so we have this very unique situation where we have this older son who

just kind of gets stuck in this unfortunate situation that his younger brother has

created. And then at the end of the passage, we see this older brother

really struggles with how he's going to handle this great opportunity.

You know, we love the prodigal son.

Every one of us identifies greatly with this story because we're all the younger

son, right? I mean, like we, if you truly have been saved, if you truly

understand what it means to give your heart and life to Jesus Christ, to feel

the weight and the burden of your sins on yourself and to take that to Christ

and ask him to forgive you of those sins and to receive salvation and forgiveness

of sins, it is a wonderful gift that you cannot even put into words, but

you just have to experience it for yourself in that moment to know how

amazingly powerful and meaningful it is.

And so when we read this story and we look at this younger son coming home

and he comes back and he says, Father, I'm not worthy to be your son.

I've sinned against heaven.

I've sinned against you.

I'm not even worthy to be called your son.

Just take me on as a hired servant.

That was his rehearsed speech that he was going to give.

It's this amazing moment that we all identify with because if you truly are

saved, you know that you come into this relationship with God, understanding

this massive debt that you owe Christ, that you can never repay.

Because there's nothing you can do to buy forgiveness of sin.

There's nothing that you can do to buy eternal life.

You can't earn it.

You can't attain it.

It's all just a wonderful, amazing, free gift out of grace and mercy from

Jesus Christ and you cannot fathom and explain what that means.

So we identify with this younger son and then the older brother is kind

of this, this, this weird one.

It's like this conundrum of the story that we have to deal with this

beautiful story and in the midst of every beautiful story, there's always

a little bit of ugliness, right?

I mean, like there's this ugly thing that we have to deal with and a lot

of times we don't know what to do with it.

So we're going to read this today for the sake of time.

I had planned for us to read the entire passage again, but let's

read verse 25 through 32.

Let's do that.

I don't know if Matthew can, can find that, put it up on the screen,

but that'll be what I read.

So in verse 25, it says, meanwhile, the older brother was still 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 fat and calf.

We are celebrating because of 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 of slave for you and ever once refused to do a

single thing you told me to.

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

friends. Yet when the son of yours comes back after squandering your money on

prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fat and calf.

His father said to him, look, dear son, you've always stayed by me.

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, but now he is found.

And so we have this awesome story that so many of us identify with with this

younger brother, this lost one, even though he's annoying and he's created

this terrible situation for the family.

But there's just something magical and amazing to know that no matter what we

do, what we've done that we can always come back and be accepted and welcome

back in. It's a great and amazing comfort to have to know that we can return

back to the father and that's what the father desires.

So this morning as we talk, I want to share this passage with you.

For those of you who are number one are very serious about your relationships

with the Lord. It means something to you.

Number two is that those of you who have been serving the Lord for quite a while

and those of you who are getting to the point where you've been serving the

Lord for a while, because if we're not careful, what happens is is eventually

we get to the point where we no longer identify as much with the younger

son and we begin to identify a little more with the older brother.

And we don't intentionally do that, but it happens as time goes on and we're

going to talk a little bit about that this morning.

So point number one is, is that the unfaithful son was celebrated and that's

something that you need to see in this.

And so as people, this is typically one of the things that a lot of people

have a difficult time dealing with when you look at Christianity is the

fact that someone could do something terrible.

I mean, you know, from what we read in scripture, from what we believe about

our Savior is that you could kill someone.

I mean, you could abuse a child. You could leave, you could abandon your child.

You could do all these terrible things and we could list still, lie, you know,

whatever. And there's different things that affect people in different ways

and might be a little more triggering for some of you than others.

But a person could do like some of the most horrible things on earth

and still come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior and be forgiven and receive eternal life.

People have a hard time with that.

And especially like people who are out in the world,

because there's this sense of justice that we have as people of we feel like,

well, if you do certain things, then you deserve this and you don't deserve this and blah, blah, blah.

But we have to be very careful that as we serve the Lord in our life,

that the longer we go living for God and being a part of the church and working in the church

and serving in that way, serving other people, serving God, that we don't come to this point

where we have this attitude of having a difficult time when we see unfaithful

or undeserving people being celebrated or elevated, because that's hard.

And if we're not careful, we can get to that point as believers.

And for various reasons, whether you've been a victim of something that someone has done

and you have a hard time of understanding, how can God forgive them for what they did to me,

because we haven't healed from it or moved past it or whatever.

To understand that we serve a heavenly Father whose greatest desire is for us to return to Him,

He wants to love us, He wants to restore us, He wants to take what has been broken

and make it right. And as long as we're on the receiving end of that,

like I can guarantee you, there's people in this room right now who are like,

man, if people knew this one thing that I did or these several things that I did,

they would probably want to bury me under the jail, like I'm so ashamed of this.

And it's very comforting for us as an individual to be able to come to our heavenly Father

and to be received and welcomed and have that robe and that ring put on

and not just welcomed back in, because you remember what the son said.

He said, I'm not worthy to be your son, take me on as a hired servant.

He didn't feel worthy to come back home and to take his place as a son. He said,

I'll just be a hired servant because it's better than what I've created for myself.

But the Father puts the robe on him, puts the ring on him, kills the fat and calf,

welcomes him home, identifies him as a son. Now it doesn't change a lot of the circumstances

we're going to talk about a little bit, but the Father receives him back and claims

him as part of the family, despite all the stupidity that he's done over the past several

months, years, whatever. We find great comfort in knowing that we can come back to God,

but sometimes we have a difficult time understanding how God can forgive other people because we

don't understand their sins or why they did something or the fact that they did it to us.

And so this idea of our justice, this innate justice that we have, we have to be very careful.

As people, because we also have sin innate within us. And so there are certain qualities

that God's given us as people that are very natural, like the sense of wanting justice,

but because of our sin nature, like a lot of the things that God requires and wants of us

get skewed because of sin nature. And so then we become biased and we prioritize certain sins

over others. And we say, well, this is worse or this is worse. And we have to be really careful in

that. And so you have this unfaithful son who is celebrated, and it may not seem very justified

to many people of the world, but for us as believers, we have to be really careful

and remember that we serve a heavenly father, that it's all his. And that every single person

that's in this world is his. And if he wants to forgive them, if he wants to welcome them back in,

then he has every right ability and authority to do that, whether or not we understand it,

because they're his. And have you ever been around a kid and the kid just be awful?

And you're just like, whose kid is that?

And only their mom and daddy would claim them like nobody else would. It's like, thank God they have

a mom and a daddy because nobody else would love them. Like, you know, and it's kind of that

situation. There's a lot of people in this world. I have to be really careful when I go out

because it's very easy, even as a pastor, as a Christian for 20 years, it's very easy to go

out and for whatever reason, a certain person or a particular person will say or do something

and it aggravates the snot out of me. And it immediately makes me want to like form judgments

and it's like, just like, man, I would love to just be able to, you know, a lot of times it's

like, I wish I could just like ram this person and get away with it. You know, it's like stuff

like that. But we have to be really careful because as Christians, even we can be very hard

towards other people and just remembering that this is a child of God. And while nobody else

on this earth may love them, God very much loves them. God very much created them. God

very much has a plan and a purpose for life and a desire to bring them back to fellowship

with him. And so while they may be unfaithful, while they may be undeserving, and even though

they may be elevated or celebrated, we need to be okay with that because this is exactly

what God wants. The younger son did not deserve to be elevated or celebrated, but he was because

God chose to do that. Remember, the father represents God. It's hard to say that you're

a Christian and that you're a follower of Christ and argue with what God wants to be done.

And that's one of the things that we will battle as you mature in your walk with Christ

and you serve God in the years to come. One of the things that you will battle won't be

sins of the flesh or sins of the world or sins of the youth of all the old things you used to do.

It will be simple things like battling God's will versus your will, especially as you get older

and you can make decisions and you feel like you're wiser than you used to be. And we fall

into this trap of maybe we know better rather than seeking God. We will always battle against

God's will because we don't fully understand God's will. And what God is doing over here

in Brian's life and how God's speaking to him, Kevin may have absolutely no idea.

And it doesn't mean that Kevin's not spiritually mature or he's not walking with Christ,

but God is so much bigger than we are. He's doing so much more than we understand or can

comprehend. And so being okay with his will and his plan and his purpose and what he's doing

is a huge part of being a believer. Point number two is the faithful son was uncelebrated.

You have the unfaithful celebrated, the faithful uncelebrated, which is hard too.

And a lot of times what you'll find is that people as people proceed in their relationship

with Christ, as they begin to serve, we begin to have this kind of like attitude and thought process

of man, like, what am I going to get out of this? Man, is this all worth it? I've had those thoughts.

Even as a pastor, I'm like, man, is this worth it? Like, is what I'm having to deal with right

now? Is this going to be worth it in the end? Like we all have those thoughts and those questions.

You know, even the disciples asked Jesus, Jesus, we've given up our houses and families to follow

after you. What will we get in return? And you look at this uncelebrated brother,

look at the attitude of his heart. Look at what he says to his father. Now he,

and the father represents God, so he's saying this to God.

Can you imagine having the audacity to stand before God one day

and to just point your finger at him and just say, all these years.

Like how, you know, it's like one thing to say, like, you know, look at your mom and dad and

say to her someone else and say all these years, but to like, to picture yourself standing before

God on judgment day and pointing your finger at him, it sounds pretty like that feels dirty.

You say all these years, he's been keeping score this whole time.

And if you're not careful as you walk in fellowship with Christ,

hopefully your life will be all these years, right? How many of you want to live

a lot of years from now? So hopefully it will be serving him all these years.

Okay, that's a blessing. And so, so you look at God, he's keeping score. He's got all these years.

And look at the second thing he says in the sentence, I slaved for you.

I did all this stuff for you. And I did it because you forced me to. That's what slavery is.

I slave for you. I served you against my will in bondage. So there's the attitude like being just

slowly revealed in this. He's keeping time. He's, he's, he's, he's punching in his cards every day.

He's keeping up with how many, how long you served him. He's slave for him. And then he says,

never once refused. Of all the things the father asked him to do, he never once refused

what you told me to do. You told me to do all these things. I did everything you told me to.

I never refused. So he's keeping score. He's keeping tallies. And then the fifth thing he

says is all that time. And so there's the time thing coming back into play. Time is valuable,

right? Time is super valuable. And I say this all the time to Christians.

So many American Christians like get all caught up on, on like things like tithing and money,

because that's like a big issue. Let me tell you something. The hardest thing you're going to

have to choose to give to the Lord is your time. You can make money. You can make more money. You

can't get more time. When you give it away, it's a finite resource. It is very limited. And

the older you get, the less time you have, and the less you have, the more valuable it becomes.

And as you serve God, one of the greatest things he will require of you is time. There's a reason

why this son mentions it twice. He's like, all these years and all that time I did this for

you. And if you're not careful, you'll find yourself as a believer and you'll be looking at

God and it's like, why do I have to do all this stuff? Why do I have to spend so much time? Why

do I have to be at church? Why do I have to do this? There's all these questions of God,

why? Why am I having to do all this stuff? And the sixth thing he says is, you never gave me.

You gave my sorry brother over there, the unfaithful one, you gave him the fattened calf

and celebrated his stupidity, but you never gave me, and he even dumbs it down, a young goat.

You have the fattened calf, the young goat. I don't know if any of you's ever had goat before.

There's a big difference between the two. The fattened calf gets chewed up and swallowed,

tastes very nice. Goat's tough. It's like chewing on beef jerky that's a couple years old.

You never gave me a goat. And the last one, the eighth thing he says is, for a feast with my friends.

And that reveals everything about this older brother's heart. He didn't care to celebrate

and feast with his father. He wanted to celebrate and feast with his friends.

It was all about what he didn't get. And so he's serving the father out of obligation. He's serving

the father out of duty. He's serving the father because it's the right thing to do. But there

was no desire. There was no urgency in his life to do it because he loved the father and he

enjoyed being with the father. And if we're not careful, we'll fall into this trap of trying

to be a Christian and just doing it because it's the right thing to do. And we'll do all

these things and we'll do it underneath our own strength. And let me tell you, if you're doing

this under your own strength and you're doing it because it's the right thing to do, you are going

to be tired and exhausted and you're going to resent everything about Christianity and your

relationship with the father. And you're going to feel like you've sacrificed and you've done

all this stuff and you've worked so hard and he owes you all this stuff because of all the stuff

that you've done. And the truth is being a Christian like that is not Christianity at all.

It's a false sense that Satan wants you to fall into that you can do this on your own

and you can work at it and then you can receive salvation because of all this stuff you do.

When in reality, Jesus ascended to heaven so that we could have the Holy Spirit and be filled

with the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit empowers us to be obedient and to do all these

things. And there's a very different aspect of Christianity when you're living it filled with

the Spirit versus when you're living it trying to do it underneath your own strength. This is why

you see people who claim to be Christians doing it under their own strength. They're tired,

they're miserable, they're bitter. They're not loving or merciful towards other people.

They look at other people who are living in sin, they say, why can't you just do it?

Why can't you just get it right? Why can't you just not sin? Why can't you just go to church?

Why can't you just read your Bible? But people who live in the Spirit, they're amazing to be around.

They don't live in sin, they go to church, they do everything that God's called them to do

and they're so happy to do it. Why? Because they're not having to try to do it.

The Lord is leading them to do it through the power of the Spirit and there's great joy and happiness

and peace in the midst of that that other people will never experience because they don't know what

it's like. In one sense of Christianity following God looks like slavery, like the older brother.

In another sense of Christianity, it looks like this is the best thing I ever had in my life

and it's so much better than anything I ever chose for myself. And as Paul said, everything I had

to give up for Christ, it's all garbage because what I get from Jesus is so much better than anything I

ever had before. There's total difference in attitude in that. And so as a believer,

I just want to remind you this morning that as you serve Christ, it's very important to remind

ourselves as we serve Him, number one, we need to be living through the power of the Spirit.

We cannot do this on our own. And then as we live through the Spirit,

that your reward is not of this world. Don't fall into this trap of thinking like,

because I serve Jesus here and now, that I should be rewarded here and now. When you

read scripture and you look at what Jesus said, the reward is in eternity. The reward is heavenly

and thank God it's in eternity and it's heavenly because then the reward lasts forever. Anything

that you receive in this world is temporary and it fades and you're going to leave it here and

you can't take it with you. And we may want blessings and the Lord may bless you in certain

ways, the Lord may bless others in certain ways, but that's not your reward. What Christ has

promised you for serving Him comes in the world to come in eternal life. The other thing is that

your reward for being faithful, it's not immediate. You know, you look at this older brother, it

wasn't like he was unrewarded. Everything that the brother was coming home to, it was actually the

older brothers. The father was still alive. The father still pulled rank, but remember,

the father had already divided up the estate. It was actually the older brothers. Everything

that was left belonged to the older brother. We're not going to be instantly gratified.

The other thing is you're not going to understand everything the father does.

You're going to look around at some days and you're going to see other people being rewarded

or other people being elevated and you're going to be like, what am I doing wrong? How is this

person being celebrated, elevated? How is this person getting a promotion? How is this person,

like how does this person have people listening to them and they're a buffoon? And I'm over here

doing everything, putting everything I got into it, man, like what's going on?

We don't always understand what the father is doing and why he's doing it.

And we've got to be okay with that. Part of serving Christ is being okay with just

trusting God and not truly knowing everything that he's doing, but just having faith and

walking with him. It's not our responsibility to keep score and divvy out justice. That's

the father's responsibility. When you look at this older brother,

he felt like he should be in charge of the way this younger brother was treated.

But the younger brother belongs to the father

and the father gets to choose how he's going to be treated and what's going to be done to him.

Point number three, last one. As a Christian, it's so important for us to celebrate with joy.

When you look at other people and when they receive things, when they're celebrated,

elevated, or blessed with something, it's so important for us as believers

to have that attitude in our heart, to celebrate for them and with them,

and to not be jealous or angry because of what they're getting and what we haven't got.

That's what you see in the story. I mean, this is 10 commandments coveting 101. The older brother

is angry because he's done everything right from a worldly perspective and the younger

brother's done nothing right. The brother gets celebrated and has this party thrown for him,

but the older brother didn't. And he's looking at what the younger brother got and he's coveting

what was being done. And as a believer this morning, it's so important for us not to fall

into this trap of coveting what God is doing in someone else's life versus what God wants to do,

or maybe isn't doing, or what may God may want to do later on in your life to not

covet it in the moment. And that's really difficult.

You know, when we're walking in fellowship with Christ and we're filled with the Spirit,

we're not going to be keeping score. You're not going to be keeping time, you're not going to be

keeping score with others, and you're not going to be doing things begrudgingly. And when you're

filled with the Spirit and you see God working and moving in other people's lives, the Spirit

will prompt you to be happy and to celebrate with them. Will there be other people in this world

who are going to be elevated and celebrated that don't deserve it? Absolutely. And remember

that in this life it may be the only reward that they ever get.

God may be blessing people in this life because they don't know Him, they don't follow Him,

and they're not going to have an eternal life. This will be the best life they ever know.

But your reward is to come. You know, raising kids is very eye-opening, very interesting.

And so our six-year-old, four-year-old, and two-year-old, we have a super fun time

of trying to be fair. And it's amazing at how six, four, and two, they're already,

they have the mindset of, well, that's not fair. Okay? This is, I mean, I want you to think of this

as a Christian, how funny this is, that as adults, we have these same conversations and feelings that

a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old do. Even they think this way. You know, when we,

around the house in everyday life, like my wife and I, you know, we have a finite amount of

resources. And even though, like, let's say, for example, a pack of peanuts, something as simple

as a pack of peanuts, we may only have one pack of peanuts left, but we have three kids.

And so they either have to share, or two of them have to not want them for one person to get the

whole pack. And so you're trying to be like, okay, you got them, but you got to be willing to share.

And we can go get more peanuts, but we just don't have them at the moment. So you try to

handle it in a fair way. And I was like, well, that's not fair. I asked for them first. Why

can't I get the peanuts? And those are the conversations that two, four, and six-year-olds

have already. And if we're not careful as believers, what we'll do is we'll catch ourselves.

Looking around at the people around us and associating this worldly understanding that

we have of resources and applying that to our heavenly father. Like, okay, we have a finite

amount of peanuts right now, but we can go get more. And then you have as many dang peanuts

as you want. Just stop crying. But when you look at God, God gives to us from an

infinite amount of resources. You know, sometimes we just need to remind ourselves what we believe

about the God that we say that we believe in, and to understand that God is infinite,

that there's nothing that he can't like, even if it doesn't exist, like we serve a God who can

speak it into being. And so when you look at someone who is being elevated or celebrated,

or they receive a blessing, or they get something that you see them have, and you want

that, or you feel like you deserve it more than them, it's not like that person has cheated you

out of something that God now has, sorry, Brian, no more, so you don't get no peanuts today.

He's mad. But we serve a God who can bless and give and create infinitely from an infinite

amount of resources. And so the simple fact that we would ever look at someone and what they get

or how they're celebrated, or elevated, or given something, and covet it and desire it,

and want to take it away from them, reveals something that's drastically wrong in our hearts.

That we would want to take it from them, and then apply it to ourselves, because we feel like

we deserve it more, even though God chose to give it to them. And that's a dangerous place to be.

But to remind ourselves that we serve a God, it's like God, you know, that person got that house,

or that piece of land, or that person got that car, that person got, they got a kid and I didn't,

it's like, dude, we serve a God who took a hundred and something year old man,

a hundred and something year old woman, and gave them a child.

Like, did the impossible.

And it's not a common thing, but it's possible. And so whatever you feel like you've been cheated

out of, remind yourself this morning, you serve a God who can do anything. And if it's his will

for you to have it, or experience it, he can very much make that happen. But the question is,

is when you look at how you walk in your relationship with God and how much you're

filled with the spirit, are you willing to celebrate with joy at how God is working and

moving in other people's lives and what he's blessing them with? And are you okay with it

if you never received that or experienced that even in your own life?

Because truthfully, if you're serving Christ out of your own ability,

you're going to struggle greatly with that. But if you're serving Christ through the spirit,

the spirit will give you everything within you that you need to celebrate with everyone else

with joy. And so the understanding of being humble and rejoicing should speak to every single

person who loves Jesus Christ this morning to say, God, I just, I want to serve you.

And you look at this son who said, you never gave me a goat to have a feast with my friends.

It was never about having a feast with someone else. The older son had the greatest privilege

of all. He got to live and dwell with the father. He got to live life with the father.

While the other son ran away and didn't have all that time with the father, the older son

got to live and walk in fellowship with the father. That's the true reward. And until we

get to that point where we realize that the father is the true reward, the fellowship,

the access, just being in his presence, that's the true reward. We'll always have a miserable

relationship with Christ. We'll always feel like he owes us more than what he's given us,

or that we should, we're keeping tally, we're keeping score. But loving God and being filled

with his spirit and understanding he is the reward. He in itself, he's the reward. That's

where we should be as Christians. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for this

day and this opportunity to be here. Lord, I'm so grateful for the people who shared.

Thank you for speaking on their hearts this morning, and Lord, just giving them the strength

and courage to stand up and do that for the youth who shared, for the adults who shared.

Lord, just thank you. And Lord, as we take this passage and as we leave here today,

I pray that you would speak into our hearts and remind us that Lord, it's not always about

us and what we can receive that when we chose to follow you a long time ago,

we had the attitude of this younger son who said, I'm not worthy to be yours,

just take me on as a hired servant and I'll be okay with that.

Lord, help us not to fall into this trap of being like the older son who says,

I deserve more and I'm jealous of what someone else is getting.

Jesus, help us to just love you and just enjoy being in your presence. We thank you,

we love you and we ask all this in your precious name. Amen.