The Jesus Stories • The Story of the Prodigal Son

Welcome to the Willow Ridge Sermons podcast.

This is where you can find audio from Sunday morning messages and more.

Make sure you're subscribed so that you don't miss future episodes, and thanks for listening.

Well, good morning.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join us in Luke chapter

Luke 15 · chapter mention

15.

If you were here last week, you'll understand what I'm about to say.

We are in the parable of the prodigal son this morning, right?

If you don't know, go back and listen to last week's.

It was a whole thing, right?

We are here.

We are excited to see what God is going to teach us in this.

After I'm done with the message, I'll lead us in a time of preparing our hearts for the

Lord's Supper.

The worship team will come on stage during that time, and then we'll have the Lord's

Supper after that.

You guys know that.

But there's going to be an added element after that this week that's a little bit different

than normal.

School is starting back for most of our students this week, I believe.

I think I heard one school district starting on Tuesday.

I know Lexington 1 and Lexington 2 are starting on Wednesday, and there may be, depending

if you're private school, homeschooled, or at a different school district, different

days.

But for the most part, we're starting back this month.

And I know college students are preparing to move back or to move off for the first

time and then to do that as well.

And so after the Lord's Supper, something that's a little bit different is we're going

to have some time in here where we're going to pray for all of our students, pray for

all of our school teachers, pray for the homeschool teachers, pray for all district workers, pray

for anyone that works in the educational system across the board.

And so that'll be at the very end of the service and would love for you guys to be a part of

that.

So when we get done with the Lord's Supper, we won't take off at that point.

We'll kind of hang in here for a couple more minutes.

I want to echo what Pastor Dave said about our discipleship studies and really encourage

you to look into signing up for one of these.

Since we've been doing this, it's been a wonderful encouragement in my life, both to teach some

of these classes and to have the opportunity to sit in and to be a part of some of these

classes that are being taught.

And then kudos to Dave.

As I look at, we've had some wonderful studies that have been offered throughout as we've

been doing this, I think right out a little less than two years, right, that we've been

walking through this together.

But this one is just, I think, a wonderful balance of really intriguing options to really

challenge you with where you are in your spiritual walk to grow in obedience to the Lord.

And we are called to be discipled, right?

And this is one of the tools and one of the avenues that we use for that at 9 a.m. every

Sunday morning.

So please take some time in prayer to pray through, to read through this, and to see

what God has for you.

And for those of you that have kids, it's a wonderful opportunity to drop your kids

off at 9 o'clock for them to be discipled for the fifth grade and under or in building

two.

And then to hear, I don't ever really know exactly what's going on.

Like Joel gives me a snapshot, but I will say there is not a louder, more excited group

than our students that meet upstairs right up there.

And so it's just a wonderful, I don't know why you wouldn't want to be there and be a

part of that, a wonderful, wonderful time that they can have together as well.

And so parents, I want to say this here, my heart, this is just honest conversation with

you within this, okay?

Mental discipleship for your kids, don't drop them off at discipleship.

If they need it, you need it.

All right?

Sign up for them.

All right, Luke 15.

I believe, this is my personal preference, this last year Emma took a class at Lexington

High School where she watched a movie every single week.

That's what she did.

And then she got to discuss it.

And I loved it because it was all old movies, like old movies that I would have known and

that I would have seen.

And so she went through on her phone and she ranked all the movies that she enjoyed and

we got to talk through all of those things.

And what I loved about her list is if I were to make my list, there would be some things

that were different, but then there would be some things that were the same.

And what unified our list was this beautiful telling of all of these wonderful stories.

And you know what it's like to hear that story, right?

That story that just reaches out and it captures your imagination, it captures your heart,

your feelings, and you just want to hear it over and over and over and over again.

As a little boy, I spent most Friday nights at my grandparents.

I loved going to my grandparents.

And I'll never forget every night when I would go to bed at my grandparents' house, my grandfather

would come in and sit down on the edge of the bed and tell me a story.

And it could have been a story that he was making up on the fly or a story that he always

knew and I loved, loved, loved to hear his stories.

Wonderful storyteller.

Well in Jesus, we have the greatest storyteller.

And as we've been going through these parables, we've been diving in to look at them and see

and to understand these stories that Jesus is telling.

And maybe it's because of my own personal journey and my testimony of coming to faith

in Christ, but for me, the story of the prodigal son is a wonderful, the greatest - we can

say that, right?

About God's Word, right?

It's all great, but for me, there's that attachment and the heart pull that is there and it's

my joy and excitement to share this with you this morning.

And so if you've heard this story before, I praise you journey through this with us

this morning, that your ears will not shut down because I've already heard this before.

And if you're hearing it for the first time, right?

I will tell you this, in the time that we have today, we are scratching the surface

of the beauty of the truth of what God has penetrated into this story.

And so if you've got questions, we would love to answer those for you.

But we will see this of what starts off as a story of tragedy, and then we see the beauty

of the Father.

So we'll start looking in Luke chapter 15, we'll start reading in verse 11.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

"And he," and this is Jesus, "said, 'There was a man who had two sons.

And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of 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 and reckless living.

And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began

to be in need.

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.'"

Verse 17, "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, and 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 arose and came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, and ran,

and embraced him, and kissed him.

And 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 hands and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and

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."

Verse 25, "Now his older son was in the field, and as 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 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, and I never disobeyed

your command.

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

But when this son of yours, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed

the fattened calf for him.'

And he said to him, 'Son, you were 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.'"

I love this story so much because I think that this story, in my mind, as I read through

it, really describes in very vivid details what it looks like in the love that the father

has.

The story often - and we're going to look at these two sons, and if you've got a brother

or you've got a sister, and especially if there's the two of you and maybe you've experienced

some of that sibling rivalry, you can kind of wrestle with and see and maybe even identify

with some of the struggle that's there.

And we're going to look at these two sons, but what I want us to really dive into and

just penetrate in my prayer for you this morning that would capture your hearts, right, is

the love of this father.

The love of who the father is and what the father does.

And so we will look at each one of these and then the father's reactions.

The very first, we see this son, the son of rebellion, and it's laid out in verses 11

through 16.

He comes to his dad and says, "Give me what is mine."

And it's not that dad just kind of had some money that he'd set aside for him at a certain

point in time.

It's not that dad owed him some money for some work that he had done.

It's he is saying to his dad, "Give me my inheritance.

Give me what I'm going to get when you're dead.

Give me what I deserved.

Give me what is mine."

And in this, his focus was not on his father.

It was not on their community that they had.

It was not on his brother.

It was not on anyone else.

His sole focus in this is his own existence.

He becomes his focus.

His eyes locked in on himself.

And so the father takes, he works what he needs to do, and he hands over his share of

inheritance.

And the son takes it and wastes, wastes what's been entrusted to him.

You know, when we look at our rebellion, when we look at the sins and the pursuits and the

things that we do, it's remarkable to me that so many times, so many of us take the beauty

of what God has entrusted us with.

We take the beauty of what God has given to us.

We take the beauty of the grace that we all have the privilege to live in in this world.

And instead of living in that grace before the creator of the heavens and the earth,

we take that which was beautiful and entrusted to us, and we make it dirty when we make it

all about ourselves.

We take those things that he has for us.

We take those things that he entrusts us with, and we waste it.

We waste it.

The Bible says here, Jesus' words, was that he wasted what the father had given him on

reckless living.

Doesn't get into details.

The older brother's got some ideas, right?

We'll see that without too much for the sake of kindergarten parents hanging out in the

room with us.

But we see this reckless living that he entrusts, this cravings of the flesh.

And what I want us to see, and I think this is what Jesus wants us to see, he's continuing

to pull those things closest to him that will give him those desires of the things that

he wants.

You know, the lie that we believe in this world, which has been the lie from the fall

to the lie of today, is that the ability to sin, the ability to live in the cravings of

the flesh, is freedom.

It's freedom.

I should be able to do what I want to do.

I should be able to have what I want to have.

I should be able to experience what I want to experience.

And to live in that is freedom.

But look at where this young man finds himself.

He doesn't find himself living in the joy of freedom as he fulfills the cravings of

his flesh.

What he finds himself living is what the truth that sin brings, which is slavery.

He sells himself.

He stoops below where he would have to stoop.

He settles for lesser than.

He longs for the things that even now at this point in his flesh acknowledge as disgusting,

but it's where his sin has brought himself to.

The lie of the world, the lie that humanity is embraced over and over and over again is

this, sin satisfies.

Scratch that itch.

Experience what your flesh wants.

Give in to who you are.

And there you'll find your freedom.

But the sin never satisfies.

And all it does is create a greater hunger.

It was interesting what Jesus used as his illustration here at the very end in verse

16, in where this young man found himself was not longing for shelter, was not longing

for conversation, but longing to be fed.

He hungered for more than what sin could provide.

That's the sin of rebellion.

When we move aside God's standards, God's plans, God's expectations, and we say I become

my own God with my own plans, my own expectations.

And instead of seeking the spirit of God, we seek the flesh of ourselves to fulfill

those and to satisfy those.

But here's the hope.

The hope is what we find in the Father.

The hope is not what we find in the son, the hope is what we find in the Father.

And so what we see here is the Father who pursues and restores.

The Father who pursues and restores.

But in order to see this, let's look at what happens in this young man's life.

Look at your Bible back in verse 17.

It says, "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 and 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.'"

In the first part of verse 20, "And he arose and came to his father."

I love the response of this younger son.

But when he came to himself.

That's not an expression that we use often.

And so once I did some word study on this phrase, "But when he came to himself," there's

a very descriptive explanation of what this means in the context of what Jesus was saying

to this group of people that is listening to him teach this parable.

On a surface level, it's he's had a change of mind.

On a surface level, he looks around at himself and he's like, "Who am I?

Why am I doing this?

Why am I treating myself this way?

Why am I allowing myself to live in this manner?"

It's a change of mind.

But also within this, it's more than that.

It's a change of heart.

It's a change of heart.

And I believe what we see happening here is not this young man thinking to himself, "How

do I scheme my way back into the good graces of my Father?"

But I think what we see here is a young man broken for his sin.

What I think we see here is a young man who understands the goodness of the Father.

What I think we see here is a young man who's heard about grace and love and forgiveness

his whole life, but has never lived in the reality and the expectation that that's for

him too.

So whatever caused that in that moment, Jesus says, "But when he came to himself."

And the reason why I think it's repentance, I'm going to show you a few of these in Jesus'

words, but it's going to be because we see the Father's response.

We see the Father's response.

But let's look at this young man.

What did he recognize?

He recognized the Father was the only solution.

He recognized the Father was the only solution.

He said, "I will go to my Father."

He didn't say, "I'm going to search out someone better."

He didn't say, "I'm going to search out some different perspective."

He didn't say, "I'm going to search out some self-help opportunities."

He didn't say, "I'm going to search out someone that can do something for me."

He said, "The only solution was the Father."

I want to tell you this, when you find yourself lost in your trespasses and sins, the only

solution.

It's not about you white knuckling this, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Bible tells us that you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

What can a dead man do?

A dead man can do nothing.

He can do nothing to save himself.

The only thing that he could do was acknowledge the solution was the Father.

What did he repent of?

What did he repent of?

He didn't blame society.

He didn't blame his older brother that dad always liked him more.

He didn't blame the people that conned him out of his money.

He didn't blame the farmer that was taking advantage of him.

He didn't blame the Father who had given him the money and the property in the first place.

What did he repent of?

He acknowledged that his sin was the issue.

I have sinned against heaven and you.

When you're lost in your trespasses and sins, when we find ourselves in patterns of rebellion

and disobedience, can we have the honest conversation within ourself to stop pointing the blame

at everyone and everything else?

And can we understand that the greatest struggle that you and I have is ourselves?

It's me and it's you.

And our issue is our sin.

And then what did he acknowledge?

In where he had found himself.

He acknowledged that he was unworthy.

He acknowledged that he was unworthy.

He said, "I'm gonna say to him, 'I'm not worthy to be your son.

If you just treat me as one of your hired servants, I'm not even worthy.'"

This is beautiful.

And our response and our desperation of what sin has created to understand in our lives

that Jesus is the only solution, that sin is our problem.

And as graciously as he gives it, we are unworthy of God's grace.

And in our perspective, in this, this break from rebellion, it begins and rests on us.

But if we're careful, if we're not careful, we'll miss what Jesus tells next in this passage

of Scripture.

In this verse, in the second half of verse 20, I believe it says, "But while he was a

long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed

him."

So here's what I want us to see.

The Bible tells us, Jesus tells us in this story that while the young man was a long

way off, the father saw him.

All right?

I don't think that this means that the father sees someone at the end of the driveway.

I think when we look at the wholeness of Scripture of what God's teaching us, that this is what

we, what we see, that this young man had gone off.

And what this wording implies is that the father was actively out searching for him.

And that in the midst of his searching, this young man comes to his senses.

This young man repents.

And in the midst of his rebellion, in the midst of all of this, God was looking, God

was pursuing, God was calling, God was at work.

God's not the father sitting on the rocking chair waiting for us to figure it out.

And in your rebellion and in mine, God in His mercy and His love was pursuing our hearts.

God in His mercy and love was calling others to share the truth.

God in His mercy and love was at work and was at moving, and so in that moment where

we woke up is the evidence and the fruit of the God working in our lives.

The father saw Him because he was searching for Him.

It says that the father felt compassion.

I think for so many of us when we look at the long list of crimes stacked up against

us, of sins that we've committed, there's the hesitation in coming before God with this

because what we're expecting to do is we understand at some point in time there's like salvation

and love that happens, but what we think is going to happen is before we get there, let's

go ahead and handle this anger and wrath issue.

But here's the thing, when you come to God in profession as Jesus Christ as your Lord

and Savior, here's the beauty of it.

Look at the cross, every bit of wrath that would have been given to you was poured out

to Jesus on that.

Every single moment of it, every single molecule of it was sent by the father to his son, and

he paid the price in full.

He didn't pay part of it.

The Bible says that he canceled the debt that our sin created.

But it's there, it's compassion.

The father, in seeing his son covered in filth, covered in the mess, covered in all that it

would be, he felt compassion.

And I love this.

The next thing that he did is he ran to him.

He ran to him.

Let me tell you this, when Jesus said this, there could have been people in the audience

that would have laughed, because noblemen, wards, kings, rulers, like this man would

have been, would never run for anyone.

They would sit and they would wait, but yet what we see is the father ran to the son.

Jesus didn't say from his throne, "Hey, come figure out how to get to me."

He didn't say, "Hey, go start making your list.

Make sure there's more good than bad.

You better make sure there's a lot of good, because even some of that good's probably

bad, so you gotta really make sure, right?

You gotta figure this out.

You gotta check all these boxes.

You gotta do all these things in order to get to me."

Jesus says, "No, no, no, no, no.

I'm coming to you.

And as crazy as you think that is, the king of the king and lord of the lords is stepping

out of heaven, and he's taking on the flesh of man, and he's walking around on this earth,

and this is who I am, and I've got a message for you, and I've got healing for you, and

I've got hope for you, and it's gonna all come to fruition, because I'm gonna die for

you.

And then I'm gonna raise from the dead, and the raising of my body is not just found in

Christ's victory, but it's found in our victory as well."

And then he says, "Let's put some shoes on his feet.

Let's put a robe on his back.

Let's put a ring on his hand."

And in this process, what he's doing is he's restoring his son beyond where he was before,

beyond where he would have been before the inheritance, beyond where he would have been

before he squandered it all away.

He restores him and sets him and establishes him in who he is in him.

And then he says, "We gotta celebrate.

We gotta celebrate."

And so fire up the barbecue, get the band playing, we're about to have a good time.

Which is why in those moments, like what we just saw right there with Patrick, can I tell

you what that is for us?

I mean, that's an opportunity to celebrate.

That's not an opportunity to go, "Oh, we got one of those today.

Oh, this is a good time to check my Facebook account.

Oh, this is a good time to go ahead and let me go ahead and find out.

Last week, Bo said we'd be at the prodigal son and he messed that one up, so let me go

ahead and find where we're gonna be today."

Right?

It's an opportunity to celebrate, to celebrate the goodness of the Father.

The third thing that we see, though, is we see the son of works.

We see the son of works, the older son.

Right, we got the rule breaker and the rule keeper.

Quick little survey, I love doing this.

Y'all know what I'm about to do.

Raise your hand if by nature you're a rule keeper.

You love to keep the rules.

Keep 'em up, keep 'em up, keep 'em up.

I'm looking, I'm looking.

I really question that on some of you, right?

I know who you are, right?

So I did not raise my hand.

I did not.

I will say this, all you rule keepers, the rest of us in here, we don't get you, alright?

Also when we play Monopoly, don't leave us in charge of the money, alright?

That's all I'm saying.

That's all I'm saying.

If you've ever said at a sporting event, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, alright?

You're not this, you're not this.

We got these two brothers, and you know how difficult it can be and we see the stereotype,

man, this one is living in rebellion, and this one man, like, you're probably, probably

the easy kid.

Probably the easy kid.

The one you had to worry about.

The one that didn't go and do all of these things.

The one that went off to school and did what he was supposed to do.

The one that came home at curfew.

But what we see here is we see the son of works.

The son of works.

So my assumption here, when we find him, we find him, he was in the field.

And my assumption is he was doing what he was supposed to do.

He was out working just like he would most days, fulfilling the expectations that the

father had for him.

And then all of a sudden he begins to smell.

You know, like when you get that smell of that barbecue going, and then all of a sudden

you hear, like there's music happening.

It's like, man, there's a party going on.

I didn't mean to do that.

It just happened.

Thanks Chris for laughing with me, buddy.

So he hears, he asks the servant, man, what's going on?

And he tells him, your brother is home, and your father has received him, and he's thrown

a party.

And in this moment, we find out who he is.

In this moment, we find out that hidden underneath all of his works is sin.

First thing here is we see the sin of assumption.

We see the sin of assumption.

Jesus says that the younger son went out and wasted everything on reckless living.

I read a commentator that talked about this, and I thought this was intriguing.

The likelihood of the brother knowing what was going on was not likely.

He'd moved off to a foreign country.

He was in a foreign land.

There wasn't the communication strategies that we have.

But yet the older brother reacts with the telling of the details of the story without

knowing the story.

And he just assumed, you know my brother.

This is what he's like.

Let me ask you this.

How many of you have ever seen someone fall, slip up, and you've said to yourself or publicly,

"I bet they fill in the blank"?

It's the sin of assumption.

We see in his engagement with the father, we see in the conversation that he gives,

we see the sin of self-righteousness.

He does this - look at all I've done!

Look at all I've accomplished!

Look at me!

Do you know how many mission trips I've been on?

Do you know how many Sundays I've been in a row?

Do you know how many Bible studies that I've led?

Do you know how many people I've shared the Lord with?

Do you know what I've done, what I've done, what I've done, what I've done?

Jesus says that there will be a group of people who said, "Lord, here's all of the things

we've done for you."

And Jesus will say, "Away from me, I never knew you."

The sin of self-righteousness.

Like, you ever found that when you get a little holy in your own mind, you never compare yourself

to Billy Graham?

I don't.

You don't compare yourself to Lottie Moon.

You don't compare yourself - my example, wish you'd have known her.

My grandmother.

We always want to take who we are, find those who we think are less than us, and then justify

ourselves based off of their sin and our own righteousness.

And that's what He does.

The third is the sin of comparison.

The sin of comparison.

That's hurt my feelings this week.

I'm not talking about the sin of comparison from one brother to another.

I'm talking about the sin of comparison of, "God, you did this for them, but you've never

done this for me."

He says, "Dad, you've never done this for me.

You've never given this for me.

Look at all I've done for you.

Look at who I am.

Look how you treat him.

But look how you treat me."

You see, he's moved now from comparing himself to his brother, and he's comparing the fairness

and the goodness of God.

I want to say this in those words that I just used.

You know, the Bible never says that God will be fair.

But the Bible always says that God is always good.

So what God does for others, God might not do for you.

But God is good in what He does.

And God's good to uphold His promises.

And God is good to fulfill what He said He's going to do.

The problem is not what God does.

The problem is the comparison that we draw ourselves into.

And so what we see here, man in a story that could have ended at this pinnacle of celebration,

doesn't.

But this is a parable, not to get us to feel good at the end, but it's a parable to understand

who we are, how others are, and God's response.

We see here from the Father, the Father who invites and the Father who provides.

Man, that sounds mad.

I don't know if you've ever had a...

We've all been in arguments.

Man, I remember before I got saved, I had a fight with my dad.

He'll watch this.

He'll remember it.

Man, I said terrible things.

I did awful things.

And my dad just told me that he loved me and that he forgave me.

And God used that five years later to bring me to the Lord.

In the son's anger, the Father doesn't rebuke him.

Scripture says that the Father entreats him.

He invites him.

He pleads with him.

He appeals to him to experience the goodness that the Father offers, that the son already

knows of.

To live in that, he invites him.

It's like, "Son, stop.

Come to me.

Why are you waiting for a party to be thrown for you when all of this is yours?"

He provides for him.

Like we miss this.

We miss this.

All of the grace that this younger son has been given has also been given to him.

Sometimes we look at people and we're like, "They don't deserve the goodness and the grace

of God."

And yes, it's true.

They don't, but neither do we.

Neither do we.

And let me tell you how God gives grace.

God doesn't put some of us under a swimming pool and flip it upside down, and some of

us under the Niagara Falls of grace, and then some of us with a little bit of water that

I've got left and said, "Well there's some for you."

But there's an overflowing, continually moving, constantly penetrating us, overtaking flow

of grace that falls on all.

And it all comes from the Father.

So the question that we have, in spite of this younger brother being this way, and the

older brother being this way, in their sin, what connects them?

What makes them alike?

I think it's called the idol of me.

I think it's for both hearts, this is what I want, this is what I need, this is who I

am, this is all about me.

Some of you, I don't know, I'd be willing to bet, there's some of you right now that

spiritually speaking, you woke up this morning and found yourself in the same stall that

the younger son found them.

You're living in the rebellion of your trespasses and sins.

And maybe you want to be there, maybe you like it, maybe you think that you know what,

tomorrow though, there's going to be this satisfaction that comes.

And let me tell you something, friends, as the man who lived in that stall for 22 years,

you never find it.

You never find it.

Maybe you are like, "Well, I'm in the stall, not because I want to be here, I don't want

to be here, but though God could never forgive me.

God could never, if you knew the things that I did."

And let me then tell you this, if that's your heart, if that's your mindset, if that's the

thought, number one, you're not thinking that.

Who's penetrating you with that is the lie of Satan.

And number two, stop limiting God.

Stop limiting God.

Can he forgive you?

Yes.

Here's the beauty of it.

Will he?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Or maybe, maybe you're the older brother, and you're out in the field, you're doing

all that you're supposed to do, but never experiencing the relationship with the Father.

You see, our relationship with Him is not found in the simplistic ways that we think

of a relationship.

It's found in a depth of intimacy where He is greater than everyone or everything else.

So whether you find yourself in the stall or the field, my challenge to you today is

to come to the Father.

Here's my hope.

My hope is, right now, if you were in this story, do you know where you'd be?

Man, you'd already be at that party.

When you heard the younger son had come back, and you heard it was time to eat, and you

heard that the band was on their way there, you went and you put your dancing shoes on,

you put your stretchy pants on, because it was time to dance and time to eat, and you

were ready, and you were celebrating and living in the goodness of the Father.

Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.

In the meantime, you can visit us at willowridgechurch.org or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on

Facebook, Instagram.