The Heart Of A King | More Than A Story

Providence family, it is good to see each one of you.

If you're a guest here with us, we are honored that you have joined us.

And I would love the opportunity to meet you when we get done in the lobby.

And before we uh are in God's word here, which we're gonna be um for our time, we're gonna sing at the end.

But um, there's a few things I just want to share with you.

Um they're all happy, they're all, they're all, they're all um, they're all good.

But uh first thing is um I'll the next few weekends I'll be out and uh you obviously you'll be fine.

Um, but I'll be out and um the first week is just rest um and uh and just vacation.

And then the second week, uh, which is a really, really sweet thing, is um we've tried to do this uh before.

We tried to do it in 2000, but something happened in 2000 and we couldn't do it.

And um uh and that's to bring all of our missionaries from around the world to one central place um and to just seek to be a blessing to them, and so uh have the opportunity to spend a week uh with them, just seeking to give counsel and encouragement, to teach through a whole book of the Bible uh with them, and um just so encouraged by that.

And I would just ask you to be praying for all of those who call Providence home who are scattered around the world.

We'll have an opportunity to be a blessing to them.

We pray.

Uh, second is I want to thank every one of you who either prayed or served our kids' camp this week.

It was amazing.

Uh the Lord uh just as we prayed, he did exceedingly more than we could ask or imagine.

So many young hearts, so many faithful leaders, so many beautiful truths to think about, the Lord being the light of the world and what that means for each one of their hearts, as they all imagine what life will be like, as they all have dreams to allow the Lord who created them, who loves them, who knows them, to know that ultimately he is the point of their life.

And so for those of you who invested a lot or a little, we just want to say thank you.

And then finally, I want to thank each and every one of you who calls Providence home.

Historically, you've been incredibly willing to extend yourself to the point of discomfort in order to reach people, to invite people to come here, but also to make room for people whom God is bringing.

The fact is, is over the years, we've made a number of appeals.

I've made a number of appeals, and you have been so responsive to those appeals.

When we needed space, 400 of you went to Saturdays.

When we needed space, 200 of you went to the first service at 8 a.m.

Even right now, there's people in a room right over here.

It's called the Harbor.

And instead of being in here to make room in this space, they're in that space.

And those sacrifices that people are making, that you have made, it makes a big difference.

It allows us to welcome people here as Christ has welcomed us, to provide them a seat and appoint them to Jesus.

In August, we normally have something that takes place.

When I say normal, it's literally every year as long as I can remember.

And I've been here 29 years, and that is college students return, and there will probably be two or three hundred college students who will come back.

Family vacations normally end about that time school starts, and so what happens is the place gets more full than it is right now, and sometimes it's pretty significant.

And because of that, I want to make an appeal one more time.

It's probably not gonna be the last one, um, but again, that maybe that's a better way.

I want to make another appeal, and that is that you would consider making room.

Uh we have 400 people who worship now on Saturdays, and we're looking for 400 more.

And I know that's a sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice that is doable.

We have 700 people worshiping at the first service at 8 a.m.

And it would be really helpful.

We're looking for 200 more to come to that first service.

There's about 100 people right now over, or at least there will be, over in this room.

And we need once a month, Lord willing, at 9:30 service in this one, is that if everyone once a month, instead of it being assigned, if you would just choose to go there one time a month first, you go there, you sit there, all the rest of them, you come here.

What it would do is it would simply make room.

We're also looking for people who would be willing to try in their family or friend network to reduce the number of cars that you drive here on a Sunday.

Okay.

Now, if you're a family, you all got in one car, I'm not asking you to walk, okay?

Um, but some of us, we have four drivers and four vehicles out in the same parking lot right now.

And if you could drive three instead of four, if that was your situation, that would be a tremendous help as we move forward.

And so let me just thank you in advance for the sacrifices that you will make to make room and the hope that we would make disciples.

So let's pray together.

Father in heaven, we bow before you, our Maker, and we bow before your word, and we want to hear from you.

As we open up your word, would you open up our hearts as we stand in front of this mirror that is your word?

Would you help us to see what you see?

Would you search our heart, test us, try us, and see if there's any offensive way in us?

And Father, we ask that you would lead us to repentance, that we would find life and joy and freedom in doing so.

So would you speak through weakness and help us, we pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

If you have a Bible, turn with me to Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

There's a book that I read 20 years ago by Tim Keller called Prodigal God.

I mention that as we turn here because that book is literally the whole book is about Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

And why I say his name and his book, he's now in heaven, um, but um, is that book had so much influence on my understanding of this chapter that it's really hard for me to imagine now, 20 years later.

I've read it many times and I've taught this parable many, many times, is where my thoughts sort of start and his end.

He just had a lot of influence in my life.

It's also a remarkable, simple book to understand.

And um, and so I would point you to it if Luke 15 is of interest to you.

There's no parable that Jesus spoke that is more famous than the one that we call the prodigal son.

It really is, however, a sad and misfortunate name that we give to this parable, not only because it's a parable that includes two sons and not one, but also that what Jesus seeks to do in the parable is to show that one had just the same problem as the other.

They were both lost, and yet one it felt bad, and one felt religious.

It's really written for us.

We learn about these two sons, or at least the context in verse one and two.

So let's read that.

It says, Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him, that is Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

And so we have two groupings of people.

The first grouping, the tax collectors and the sinners.

A tax collector was a legalized thief.

It's literally a Jewish person who purchased the franchise to raise taxes for Rome, and they would tax the Jewish people.

Well, the Romans said, This is how much you must collect every single month.

And anything you can exploit from your people above that is yours to keep.

So the Jewish people hated the tax collectors, even though they were Jewish, and these were people that were put, lumped into the group of the worst of society.

The other word that fits with tax collectors is the word sinners.

Well, the Bible says that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but he's not saying tax collectors and humanity.

No, when someone is called within the Bible in this context as a grouping, their identity is sinner, what that literally means is that they have made sin so much a part of their life, it so characterizes their life that it becomes their very identity.

And so what we find here is the religious people, the Pharisees and the scribes, when they saw Jesus' hospitality to the irreligious people, they were at a distance and they grumbled.

And so Jesus, we're told, in verse 3, began to tell them a parable.

And he said, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he's lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses the coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it.

And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

And just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

So in these two parables, what we find is some similarities.

In each we find that there is something that is missing.

Someone then goes out to find what is missing.

And when it is found, there's such joy in their heart that they want to celebrate with others.

And in each of the two parables, there's a verse at the very end of the parable that actually says that the joy within the story is symbolic of the joy that is experienced in heaven.

When someone like me, a lost person, someone who was who had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, when someone like me, maybe and like you too, who who repents of their sin, turns to God, someone who is lost, and now all of a sudden they are found.

And once Jesus has established the categories in the hearts and the minds of the people listening to him who happen to be religious and irreligious people, he adds a third parable.

And this is what he says.

Verse 11 And he said, There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share property that is coming to me.

And he divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.

When he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?

But I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father.

I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

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

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he rose and came to his father.

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

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

But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it.

Let us eat and celebrate, for this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate.

Now his older son was in the field, and he came and drew near to the house.

He heard music and dancing.

And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.

And he said to him, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.

But he was angry and refused to go in.

His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, Look, these many years I have served you.

I have never disobeyed your command.

You never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

You said to him, Son, you are always with me.

And all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad.

For this your brother was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found.

So in this third parable, the younger son represents the irreligious tax collectors and sinners.

The older son represents the Pharisees and the scribes.

And Jesus tells a story where both are included.

A story that's not really about one man and two sons, but about one God the Father and all of us who were like one of these sons.

And he tells us this, not in the hope that we would walk out thinking, what a clever storyteller.

But that we would be either saved if we haven't been.

And if we have, that we would go on to be changed.

So what do we find here?

The first thing I want you to see is that Jesus reveals the lostness of irreligious rebellion.

When we see someone who's not religious and someone who is rebellious against God and man, it's pretty easy for us to say, well, that person is confused.

That person is lost.

And that's where the story begins.

It's very important to understand that Jesus, this is a parable.

What that means is that Jesus is on the spot addressing a specific context, and he's pulling from all kinds of life experiences that would be common to everyone that's listening to him and to us.

And so he can pick and choose what he adds into his story.

And what he chooses, he does so to tell the human story.

What that means is he asked for his inheritance.

And to ask for your inheritance while your dad was alive was to wish him dead.

It was to say, I want your money and your stuff and your things, but I don't want you.

You are only a means to my desired end.

And for Jesus to put this into his parable, which he knew would be offensive and hurtful to his Jewish audience, a son wouldn't say this.

What Jesus was doing was illustrating what it feels like to be God in a relationship with man.

For how many times do each one of us say, if not with our words, definitely our actions, I want your peace.

I want your wealth, I want health, I want this and this and this, but I don't really want you.

I want your things, your gifts, but not the giver.

Well, as offensive as that would have been to a first-century Jewish audience, he then adds something that would have absolutely shocked them, and that is the agreeability of the father.

It says, and he divided the property between them.

Now, interestingly, a number of times within our story, the word property is used.

And all but one time, the word that's used there in the Greek is Usia.

When it says, Father, give me the share of property, that's Usia, it's literally wealth.

Give me money, give me my share of the inheritance, the wealth.

But it's very interesting.

One time Jesus chose a different word that's translated as property in our English Bible.

And it's right here when it says, and he divided his property, and here is not Usiya, it's the word bios.

Those of you who study biology know it's the study of life.

Bios means life.

Literally, what Jesus said is, and he divided, the father divided his life between them.

Now, why would Jesus say this?

Well, a man's wealth in this time was his land.

To divide it up meant to sell it.

And to sell your land was to sell part of yourself because your land was not only your identity, it was your means of production, and it was also your a symbol of your social standing.

It was painful.

And for Jesus to say this, what he's illustrating here is God's remarkable patience to bear his agony of seeing people he loves use his generosity to resource their rebellion.

You guys do realize that most sins in the world, including the ones that you've committed, it took resource to accomplish it.

It took money.

And the Bible says that all the resources on the earth is his.

Which means that God looks down upon us.

And when he sees us in that state of using his resources to fund our rebellion, it hurts him.

And he's the one who bears the agony.

Even in his generosity.

Well, this younger son says he gathers everything he has, and in verse 13, it says he goes into a far country.

To go into a far country was representative of no accountability.

He went where nobody knew him, nobody could say no.

Nobody can say that's not how you grew up.

There are some people in this city right now, maybe in this room, who came from another place and you're running from accountability and you came here.

Some people are here and they go somewhere else.

We go somewhere else in order to take the brake pedal off of our car.

That no one is around who could hold us accountable, and that's what he did.

And there it says that he went and he squandered all of his property in reckless living.

We're like, wow, that's beautiful, it's amazing.

But you know, fireworks, something happens.

They're gone real quick.

And what's left when they're gone?

Smoke in the air and ash to sweep up.

So it is with sin.

You go out and it's electric and it's colorful, and it is.

There are parts of sin at the very beginning, it's incredibly pleasing.

And what does it do?

It turns very dark very quick, and there's all kinds of ashes to sweep up.

Before long, he's broke, he spends everything.

This is interesting when you think about how Jesus is using these words to describe humanity.

Not everyone gets broke financially.

Some people that go and reckless living and they get broke relationally, emotionally, socially, sometimes financially.

There's a lot of people who have all kinds of money to resource more and more and more rebellion, and yet every other part of their life is absolutely broke.

So, what does he do?

It says in verse 15 that he went and he hired himself out to one of the citizens of the country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

This is amazing.

Jesus could use any animal, he could just say, Yeah, and there's some goats out there, and he went and became a goat farmer.

No, not a goat, it's a pig.

Why did Jesus pick a pig?

Because Jews hated pigs.

To touch a pig be you became unclean.

And to make it worse or more intense, verse 16 says, and he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.

In other words, Jesus in this place is describing the downward spiral of sin.

You see, all of us, when we start sinning, when we have a lust and we give attention to it, we say, Oh, it's so small, but it gets so much bigger.

It never stays the same size.

What he's saying here is this is that some of us right now, there's certain behaviors out there where like, that's disgusting.

I would never do that.

But if you take the governor of repentance out of your life and you run towards things, what happens is this things that once repulsed you become a hunger and a thirst and a craving.

And so he describes this young man to describe many of us at maybe longer seasons of our life or perhaps shorter seasons of our life when we are like the younger son, irreligious in our rebellion.

Well, the second thing we see here is that Jesus reveals God's extravagant grace.

Before we get to the second son, he says, before we get there, let me tell you about my father.

The word prodigal, if you ever wonder why does a prodigal son?

What's prodigal?

Prodigal means reckless extravagance.

Of course, that makes a whole lot of sense with the son.

He was reckless and extravagant in the way that he pursued sin.

And with that in mind, let me just point out a few characteristics of the extravagant love and grace of God, the Father.

Within the pig pen, the younger son comes to his senses and says, What am I doing here?

This is crazy.

I need to go home.

So he prepares a speech.

He goes, This is what I'm going to say when I get there.

Verse 18, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

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

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

Now, a hired servant was different than a slave at this time in this culture.

A hired servant was someone who didn't live at the estate at his own house.

They were a tradesman, they had a skill, and they were hired.

That's why it says a hired servant.

They were hired to come in and said they received a wage.

And what Jesus is doing here is so interesting to me.

He says that when we as human beings get to the place where we know that we're far from God, we typically do a number of things.

We look to God, and this is what we do.

We say, okay, I've sinned, I've blown it, I have an enormous debt in front of me.

I'm not worthy to be your son, but this is all I need.

I need a job and I need some time, and I promise you I will pay you back.

Every one of us has a heart, and every religion in the world outside of the gospel has at its center the idea is that if we are separated from God, then we have work to do to get there.

That we think there's a ladder to climb, merit to accumulate.

But what he's saying here is this is that you do not have the moral capital to pay off this debt.

None of us do.

And so the son returns home.

Verse 20, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, ran and embraced him and kissed him.

What a picture.

A patriarch in the Near East in the first century did not run.

They were stately and dignified, respectable.

If this happened to a normal Jewish man who is a patriarch, they would sit at the house, and if the son came home, they would force the son to walk through all of the other servants who were better dressed than this person who is now in rags.

And they would have to come and bear their own shame and beg and grovel for forgiveness.

But not God Almighty.

No, the Father that we have in heaven, you know what it says?

Jesus says, let me illustrate some things about my father in heaven.

First of all, he is so extravagant in his attention.

Some of you think, oh, I'm getting away with it.

No, you're not.

He sees everything and he still loves you.

He sees you and me where we are all the time.

Even from a long way off, it says he saw him.

And then he felt something.

He felt compassion.

Compassion is a very, very strange word.

It's two Greek words that are hard to say combined together, making it really hard to say.

It's literally the words translated are yearn in the gut.

You're like, what is that?

To yearn in the gut.

It literally means, you know what it means if you've ever felt it.

When you see something that's really sad, when you see somebody who's really down, when you see a child who is being harmed, when you and your mercy goes out to them and you feel something.

It's literally to feel something in this area of your life that moves your hands and feet.

You've ever seen these like adopted dog commercials and some sad music and the dogs looking through the bars, and they're like this, and you're just like, oh, I gotta do something.

I gotta adopt that dog.

I gotta have that dog.

I gotta help that dog.

That's compassion.

And God looks down upon us and he sees us in our state from a long way off.

And it says that he feels something right here that moves his hands and feet.

So he runs and he's affectionate.

He gives hugs.

And it says that he kisses.

He's affectionate towards us.

Such a picture of love.

And now all the time it's time for them.

They have to have the little talk.

And so the sun starts and he goes, Dad, I prepared a whole speech for you.

Let me give it to you.

And he gets halfway out, and the dad says, Great speech.

I've heard enough.

I don't need to talk to you right now.

I need to talk to others.

And he talks to his servants, and this is what he says.

Verse 22 Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him.

Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.

Bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

There's the painter from Italy in the 16th century.

This was his depiction of this moment.

If you look really closely at it, which may be really hard from where you're at right now, it's the moment to where they're bringing out the shoes and the robe and the ring.

And as I stared at this this week and I read these verses and stared at these verses and thought about it, I thought, this is what the Lord is trying to say.

He's trying to say, I am not waiting for you to clean yourself up.

You see, the robe we learn in the Bible is his righteousness that covers our guilt.

The sandals is what he gives us to minimize our shame in coming home.

The ring is a re-establishment of our family status, that we are adopted into his family.

The feast is a portrait of God Almighty feeling such joy that he wants to share it with others to maximize his own pleasure.

This is the extravagant love and grace of God towards you and towards me.

I'm sorry, the second son, the third point.

And that is Jesus reveals the lostness of self-righteous religion.

It's easy to see the first lostness.

When it's irreligious rebellion, you're like, that's lost.

This one's harder to see.

Don't forget the context of what's taking place here.

Jesus, you remember, is eating a meal, celebrating his joy in people who want to be near him.

Irreligious people who want to be near him.

And the Pharisees and the scribes are outside the meal and they're looking at it and they're like, how dare he?

How dare he spend money to eat with them and time to eat with them?

How dare he, if he was anybody, how could he be so hospitable to be these people?

And so Jesus writes them into his story.

When the older son returned from the field, he asked, Why do I hear music and see dancing?

And he was told, Well, your brother has come, your father has killed a fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.

And all of a sudden he ignites in anger.

He refuses to go in.

So Jesus tells us a third thing that would have been highly unusual for a patriarch in this society, and that is that the father left the feast to go out to beg for his son to come in.

He gets out there and they have a conversation, and it's interesting that the son addresses his father, not in the respectable way.

If it was respectable, he would have said, Father, look.

Father.

These many years.

But notice what it says in verse 29.

There's no father, he simply says look, and literally it means look at you.

It's accusatory.

Older sons, when they see God's grace in others, they become accusatory towards God, showing that they have more scorn towards the Father than a relationship with him.

Look.

These many years I've served you, I've never disobeyed your command.

Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

When this son of yours came, he did who devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed a fattened calf for him.

The fattened calf was the most expensive, exquisite part of any feast.

In other words, what he's saying to him is this I don't get a goat.

And you gave him the fattened calf?

How dare you use your money like this?

And if you understand the context, one son has already received his inheritance, which means that everything else is going to come to this older son.

In other words, what he's saying is, how dare you use my money for something like this?

I should have been consulted.

Don't you see the younger son left the house to be in control?

And the older son stayed close to the house to be in control.

He said, I've never disobeyed you.

Someone who imagines that thinks that, believes they've never received grace, and so they resent grace being given to others.

But both sons were very far from the heart of the Father, very far from home.

Jesus ends the parable and he simply says a word of kindness from the mouth of the Father, Son, you're always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

In other words, son, don't you see that I am the prize for staying home?

Parable ends, and you think, why does it end like this?

What happened?

Was there reconciliation?

Did the older son go in?

That's not the point.

You say, well, what's the point?

Why would it end like this?

It's because he's not really talking about a family.

He's talking to the Pharisees and the scribes.

He's talking to the sinners and the tax collectors.

And because those individuals represent us, he's talking to us.

The question is, will we come into the house?

Whatever state of lostness you happen to be in, if indeed you're lost, if you've not yet put your faith in Christ, whether you're the younger brother or the older brother, he says, Will you come home?

So let me close with a few applications here.

First of all, let's believe what Jesus teaches about God.

In this parable, we learn that God is a father, he's the heavenly father.

The fact is that our experiences on the earth, they color our vision of fatherhood.

Some of us had amazing fathers who were loving, instructing, and wise and sacrificial.

And so when we think of the word father, it's the pleasant thing.

But others, their experience with father is harsh and volatile and cold and absent and stingy and legalistic and unappeasable.

And so what God does, Jesus does is he recalibrates our vision of God so that we can see he's interested, he's attentive, he's strong and compassionate and forgiving and generous, he's affectionate, restorative, and humble and joyful.

And if you believe this about God, a number of things will happen.

First of all, if you are a father, you'll long to emulate such characteristics.

And if you have a father, you will long to be patient with him and maybe even to be prayerful for him.

That if he doesn't know this father, his love is conditioned upon being loved like this.

To pray for his salvation, that he would come to faith in Christ.

But no matter if you have a father, you are a father, the main point is if you believe this, you'll rest in this father.

Second application is let me urge us to believe what Jesus teaches about lostness.

The younger son represents irreligious lostness.

Words like reckless, immoral, prostitutes, pig styes make the younger sons among us easier to spot.

The older son represents religious lostness, which includes obedience and lawkeeping, morality, self-righteousness.

Younger sons are found in pig pens.

Older sons are found in church.

So it's harder to spot.

And almost impossible to spot from our eyes if we are the older son.

There's too much obedience in our life, too much church in our life, too much prayer, too many worship service to imagine that we wouldn't be in.

That we wouldn't be in the house, we'd only be around it.

Don't you see?

Both are far from God.

Both were lost.

Both wanted the Father's things more than the Father.

Both chose a path to stay in control.

One path was self-discovery.

I decide what is right for me.

The other path is moral conformity.

I do what tradition tells me is right.

The younger son says, be yourself.

The older son says, be moral.

Jesus says, You're both lost.

Come to me and be saved.

And if you believe this, a number of things take place.

First is personal examination.

You don't look at your moral record, you look at your heart.

You look, are you overwhelmed by the grace in your own life?

Yeah, how would I know?

Well, when you see grace given to other people, you don't question, you sing.

You're amazed when you see someone baptized.

You're so overwhelmed by grace in your own life because you've seen that you were needed that grace, that every time someone else receives grace, you think, yes, amen, and more.

Also, if you believe this, it creates within us a desire to be hospitable to all.

For the gospel needs to go to all.

Isn't it interesting that within our this setting, the people who were religious weren't very comfortable around Jesus, and the people who were irreligious seemed to feel more comfort.

And you look today in the church, and isn't it interesting that the people who feel most comfortable in a church are religious people, and people who feel most uncomfortable can be people who are irreligious.

It's only natural when you see people walking around, you have somebody who looks, I mean, their hair, their clothes, everything's done right, and you're like, they look successful, they probably don't have a need in the world.

You see someone else comes in and they're a little tattered, and you're like, wow, they got a history.

Get a pastor, someone needs to tell them.

You understand this about lostness.

What you understand is this is that everybody is made in the image of God, and everyone has a sin problem, and everyone needs the gospel because the gospel is the only thing that can address our sin problem.

Everyone.

The third thing is let's believe what Jesus teaches about salvation.

I just love that the Father went to bring both sons home.

He left the house to bring both of the sons home.

He wanted to save both.

And in the first parable, if you remember, one sheep out of a hundred went missing.

He calls the 99, he says, the 99 who don't need to repent.

Now, why would they not need to repent?

If all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, why would these 99 not need to repent?

And it's because they already have.

He's talking to Christians, he's talking to people who he loves and knows.

And here's the deal the Lord Almighty, he loves the 99.

He finds joy in the 99, but he says in verse 7 that he finds more joy in finding the one.

And for those of us who remember being the one, we take great joy and also going to try to reach the one.

So, what is needed when you hear this truth?

Two things are needed.

First is repentance.

We must turn to God.

The younger had a long list of things, the older had nothing on his list, at least in his own eyes.

And therefore, the one sin we all must repent of to come to faith in Christ is the belief that we don't need a savior or that we can be our own savior.

We have all kinds of sin in our life, but here's the reality.

Until the Spirit of God comes into our life and reveals that to us and then empowers us to leave it.

Many people, when they first hear the gospel, like, how am I supposed to leave all of this?

What am I even supposed to leave?

On day one, the one thing you must leave is this the thought that you don't need a savior, or the thought that you can be your own.

And second is belief in Jesus Christ.

You notice that the younger paid absolutely nothing to come home, but it did cost someone else everything to bring him home.

Who is that?

It's the storyteller.

And if you have eyes to see, it's really the third son in the story.

The third son is the son of God, the Prince of Heaven, who came to the earth, exposed sin, and yet never lived, never touched sin himself.

And yet he, at the end of his ministry, he went to a cross and there he died for our sin.

To pay the penalty of our sin for us.

He was buried in a grave and he rose from the dead, and he says, if you will put your faith and trust in me, if you will repent of thinking that you don't need a savior, or you can be your own savior, you confess to me as Lord, I will forgive you, I will give you eternal life, I will make you a family member, I will put my robe of righteousness around you, I will give you the sandals to minimize shame and coming home.

I'll put a ring on your finger metaphorically that literally says, You are in my family.

This is why Hebrews 2 says that Jesus looks to the Father and he says, Do you see the people who have put their trust in me?

Hebrews 2 says, I am not ashamed to call them my brother.

And therefore, I appeal to you, finally, to put your trust in Christ, our true older brother.

So let's pray.

Father in heaven, we bow before you and ask now that you would stir in each of our hearts a desire to respond.

For those who are here who have put their faith in Christ, I pray that you would lead us to express our gratitude to you.

And for those who have heard the gospel and who believe, would you lead them now to have the courage to call out to you in faith, simply saying, Father, I believe.

I repent of my belief that I can save myself.

I put my faith in Jesus alone.

I believe in his death and resurrection, that it was for me, and I confess him as Lord of my life.

God, please, as we now respond, we pray, Father, that you would continue to speak to hearts for those who have received Christ.

Would you give them courage to come and tell us?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.