Starting Point: Image of God

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're Startup Church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Cool.

You guys can open up to, well, no, well, let's talk about this for a second.

So this is our first week, uh, talk, uh, really digging into Thread, um, by now, hopefully you have, uh, the Thread app downloaded.

If you don't, you can go to your app store and type in Thread Disciple Center for Education or Thread Disciple Center, or you can type in Thread Podcast.

All of those should work and should bring you to, it's like a, you know, a wavy word Thread.

What this is, is this is going to be our, uh, our source of content for our Sunday lessons, but also it's going to be our source of content throughout the week as there's daily quiet times, like personal times with God that we're going to be able to spend, um, I have a, I have a code.

I'm not going to say the code, uh, like to everybody, whatever there's recording.

I don't know.

I just want to be, uh, I just want to be wise with it, but mention it to me.

If you're like, what's the code?

I don't know how to get on.

Talk to me about it.

I will give you the code.

And what that's going to do is it's going to allow you to have this daily, uh, source of connection to God, all of it's leading to what we're going to talk about next Sunday.

And then the Sunday after that, the Sunday after that, it's going to be an opportunity for us to have some kind of unification of, of what we're learning and how we're growing with God.

Amen.

Amen.

Um, if that was a bad sell, then just talk to somebody and say, Hey, do I really got to do this?

And then they might tell you, yeah, you should.

And this is for this reason.

And, um, so before, before I get started, uh, we're going to be in Luke 15.

I, uh, you know, I, I don't, I don't want to just paint, uh, paint over, you know, it's there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff going on always in everybody's life.

I would say, I think specifically in the Kalamazoo church, I think we've been, uh, hit by a rash of, uh, health stuff and then people who are close to us who are in a difficult financial or sorry, difficult, like health situations.

Um, I'm, I'm really, I'm impressed by Jesus, uh, the Bible says that he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteem him and we esteemed him not.

Uh, I'm impressed because it says that Jesus was a man of sorrows and he was acquainted with grief.

And so as we, uh, as we think about, uh, certainly Paul and Lorraine and, uh, without, I don't want to get into all of the, Paul and Lorraine's, sorry, Lorraine's father, um, maybe many of you know, Lorraine's father passed away, uh, just last night or this morning.

Um, and he, he was going through a difficult, uh, health situation and, and I think that they knew the end was near.

They didn't know it was this near.

And so if we can keep them in our prayers, uh, I understand that there's more, there's more than just that.

We're going through health, uh, stuff and there's just, there's, they're just being humans.

We experienced death and we experienced trials and we experienced hardship.

Jesus did as well.

Uh, and so as we grieve, uh, understand that Jesus was a man of sorrows and he was acquainted with grief.

And as we view our, uh, as we begin this, this series talking about our, what, what image we hold of God, understand that he was a God who allowed himself to feel all of the human emotions that, that we feel, um, and how much, uh, how much solace we can take understanding that our Lord also went through all of the difficulties that we go through and then we're, we're going to go into Luke 15 and that's, that's where our lesson is going to be this, this morning.

The beginning thread, it's this, it's, it's comprehensive and, uh, but in order to really have a good idea of what, what's the point this, this first four weeks is just the starting point is, is what it's called.

And this is the, for the next four weeks, the lesson series is starting point.

The title today is your image of God.

And the goal is that we really consider what is our image of God.

You know, if you, if you're at any place, if you are at the wrong starting point, then you're going to not get to where you want to go.

I don't know if you guys still go to malls, but I know one, I'm horrible at directions to malls or a place where you go to and you get into a new mall and like, I gotta go to finish line.

I gotta go to, uh, TJ Maxx.

I gotta get to the Boston store.

I don't know if they still have Boston stores, but I gotta get to Macy's wherever I gotta go.

You would say, okay, the, you are here is right here.

And then I gotta, I gotta get there from, from the, you are here.

Um, now it's, it's pretty obsolete for many of us.

I don't know if you're good at directions.

I'm very bad at them.

And so ordinarily I'm like a, you know, Google search and Google maps.

And so I know where I'm at and where I gotta go.

Some people are so good.

And I bet you, your, your grandfather was so good that he would tell you, go past this stop sign and take a left and then go past Farmer Johnson's farm.

And then you're going to take a right on highway I, and I'm like, what does that even mean?

And we've got, anyways, if you, if you don't know where you're at, you're not going to get to where you need to go.

Right.

I want to challenge us to consider our starting point of, of where we pull our perception of God.

We're taught in movies, we're taught at school, we learn at church, we're taught by our friends.

Our image of God is shaped by our familial connections.

We get, there's so many outside sources of who is God and how we view God by our, by our culture as a whole.

If you didn't grow up in America, you have a different perception of God.

Ultimately, we understand that God's word and what it says about it is the thing that matters as we, as we try to figure out what, how we view God though.

But I want you to consider, just close your eyes just for a second.

And when I say, think about God, what, what, what comes to mind and you can share that right when, when you think about what, what do you think about when you, when you think about God?

Father.

Father.

Love.

Love.

Yep.

Grace.

Grace.

Yep.

Infinite.

Infinite.

Yep.

Forgiving.

Forgiving.

Yeah.

Light.

Powerful.

Powerful.

Yeah.

Light.

Light, you said?

Awesome.

You know, I, I, and I, I say that culture plays such a massive role in our deciding this.

Joe's first, you know, Joe grew up in America.

Obviously spent time in Philippines.

His, but his first word is, would have been something that would have been understood in, in Hebraic culture a bunch is there's tangible metaphors when, when, if we were to go to, to Jesus day and say, close your eyes, what do you think about God?

They would share with you that he's a judge or he's a shepherd or he's a father and he's all of those things, but kind of none of those things exactly.

And he's much more than all of those things.

And there's tangible.

I can, I can, I can hold on to what, who, who, who God is in some way.

And Joe went to the place of saying he's a father.

Most everybody else went to places of saying, well, he's, he's big, he's powerful, he's light.

And the, you know, other words we can say is he's he's without sin.

He's omnipresent.

He's omnipotent.

He does not sin.

We can go to these places and in the Greek or the Western ideology, we might identify a lot of intangible ideas and characteristics of who God is.

Jesus ultimately, he came to reshape our entire image of God.

And so whatever image that you have of God going into when you first started or when you first start digging into the Bible, I would bet if you left the same and you said, well, I viewed God this way, I studied the Bible and I still view him the same way.

You probably haven't let the word of God transform your heart.

There's, there's all, there's stuff inside of all of us that has an inaccurate image and inaccurate view of God and we're trying to do ultimately, we're going to be able to see perfectly on that final day.

We're trying to grow as close as we can to how God paints himself in his Bible.

Amen.

Amen.

Today, today we're going to look in Luke 15 at three different passages that talk about these are, these are metaphors that we're going to use to help shape our image of God.

And we're looking at three of them.

This is, we're going to read a whole chapter in the Bible.

This is more texts than generally we look at.

So, and a lot of this, this time is going to be me spent explaining to you.

There's going to be examples that perhaps I give, I would say I would be probably doing the text.

I probably wouldn't be doing the text justice if my intention was just to give you an example of how the parable would have been lived out.

Because I really believe you guys are able to, what the parables are, is they're stories or examples of who God is.

And so you guys are going to be able to pull a bunch from this text.

I hope to pull a little bit more out by the end of it, my prayers that we leave with a more full understanding of who God is.

Amen.

Amen.

We're in Luke 15.

It says, now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Then Jesus told them this parable, suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice, I found my lost sheep.

I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.

So pause here.

And so we, we've got the start and there are tax collectors and, and sinners and he's Jesus is eating with them.

Tax collector.

You'd have been a traitor.

You were somebody who decided that it's better for me to, uh, to extort my people than to be a part of my people.

I'd rather, I'm going to put myself in a different Avenue and I'm going to become wealthy at the expense of, of my people, uh, a sinner.

This would have been maybe whatever we view as like this outward obvious sin.

Certainly we're all sinners, the outward obvious stuff and it says, then these, these holy or these religious people look, look, they start muttering like, man, this guy, look at him.

He's, he just wants to be a part of these, this lower community and Jesus, uh, hears them.

And, and then he, he shares this, this story.

And he says, if you've got a hundred sheep, of course you're going to go find the one to gather it.

And I guess it's of course, because I don't know, I think that makes sense to me, but we don't understand what shepherding all that much, uh, in our day and age.

Uh, but understand that, that Jesus, this is opening his eyes, that he cares about each individual sheep, that, that, that God cares about each of us on a personal level, understanding that God cares about us on a personal level to you and me makes a lot of sense.

We are living in, in a day of individualism and we are individual, individualized people.

And it's my own walk with God and my personal quiet time.

And I studied the Bible for myself and I come to conclusions, uh, for myself.

This would have been a little bit like, wow, my eyes are opened.

Uh, if I hear that and I'm in a Hebraic mindset or if I'm in a, in that, you know, an Eastern, you know, Jesus day mindset, because I understand my whole context of faith and religion and all of that stuff is through the lens of, of the community.

And so the, the reality of God caring for an individual, now it's communicated in the old Testament, but it would be something that would be a little bit on the, it'd be, it'd be, we're beginning to become more radical and saying, wow, he cares about individuals as well.

And, and their eyes would have been open.

And then on top of that, he communicates something so powerful.

He says, what is he saying?

He's saying, well, if you don't need to repent, then, then don't come to me.

Uh, but he says, if you need to repent, go ahead and come to me.

Right.

I tell you, as it says in verse seven, I tell you, there's more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents the 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.

We understand that all of us need to repent and yet he's asking individuals, if you, if you feel like you don't need to repent, then you don't got to come, come to us.

We understand though, that we are, we are the one who needs to repent.

Right.

And, and it's interesting because we are all the one who need to repent.

It's not like we're anyone who's going to stand up and say, well, I'm righteous.

Uh, good for you.

I don't, you know, we don't want to be, we don't, we certainly God makes us righteous, but that's not, that's, that shouldn't be our default.

Like I'm, I'm good with God.

I'm right.

I don't have to do anything to, to grow with God.

We want to be those who are, have the humility to say, I'm lost.

I just, I really need help.

I don't know.

I don't know where to go.

I don't know what to do.

Please come.

You, I trust your, your providence.

You just come rescue me.

And so this is the, the first, this is God showing that he cares like a good shepherd would care.

In Luke 15 in verse eight, and we're going to get through this one and then we're going to talk over in greater detail about what, what set of the stories that these are setting up.

It says, or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one.

Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully until she finds it.

And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me.

I found my lost coin.

And the same way I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

This silver coin would have been like, I understand like a day's wages.

And so I don't, depending on how much, but a work workers way, 120 bucks, a hundred bucks.

How are you figure loses one and searches really hard to find it.

There was a time in our life when we, me and Bianca, like four, I forget what it was.

I forget what it was for.

I think it was one of, one of our close family friends.

She gave us a card with, with some money in it.

And and I'm horrible at cleaning.

Bianca is much better at cleaning, but Bianca has a cleaning streak that sometimes just goes crazy with, with the cleaning.

Like she's, she's willing to throw a bunch of stuff.

Well, she's good at throwing stuff away, getting rid of it.

And I'm like, just put it in the area.

We never know when we're going to need this, this specific thing.

And so she said, Hey, did you, Hey, I got all these cards, a stack of cards here.

Is it?

I said, yeah, yeah.

I took the, I took, you know, took the money out of all of them.

I don't birthday, whatever it was.

I took the money out of all of them were good.

And so she tosses the cards away.

And maybe I didn't say that now that I think about it, but I'll assume that I did.

She tosses, she tosses the cards away.

And then a couple of like a couple of days later, I'm like, you know, I thought this person, like, where's, where's the money that this person gave, gave to us, like for, for whatever birthday.

And she said, yeah, I don't know.

I gave it to you.

You, you should have it.

I said, I don't, I know I don't have it.

Um, don't, where's your stash?

Like, don't you have, don't you have it?

And she said, I don't have it.

And then like, it was like five, 1000 and we both looked and we're like, oh my gosh, it's in the trash.

And it wasn't trash day yet, but, um, but even so we, we went in, we pulled out the trash and there's, I mean, we're not the grossest people, but I mean, it was before kids, it was before kids.

Thank God.

Otherwise we'd be in even, even more trouble.

But we're, you're searching every, you're doing everything you can, right.

To pull out, uh, this, this money, um, we found the money.

We praise God.

Wow.

God is so good.

You know, he's so, wow.

Thank you.

You know, we're, we're both, you know, neither, there was, we're not blaming each other for neither one of us blaming.

We're like, wow.

We both messed that one up.

But thank God.

Uh, so, so God is saying, man, you, I care about you guys.

Like a woman cares for a coin, like, like I'm going to search for you and go find you.

It doesn't, it doesn't matter to us that he really, that he brings up the word and he identifies God as being a woman, but to them and hearing that, that's another level of shock factor.

So the first is, oh, he's a good shepherd.

Of course he cares for his sheep, but there's an individual relationship that God desperately wants to have with you.

This next one.

Now he's saying, God is bigger than even your, your image and perception, uh, that he can be described as, as, uh, this widow or this, this, this woman, and it still brings value and power to, to, to how he's, how he's preaching.

It also, it's, it's also crazy guys.

I don't know.

Like I, when we found this money, we didn't throw a party though, because we would have to spend the money that we just found to throw the party.

The love of God.

It's like, it's kind of ridiculous, right?

This is, and this is what it doesn't make any sense.

Why you found some money.

So now I'm going to go spend it on.

No, I, it was, why would I spend it on everybody else if I just found the money?

Like I, this is, this is what God is communicating.

It's ridiculous.

The amount of love that God has for each and every one of us so much so that it doesn't make sense.

But he's like, I'm just going to throw a party.

I'm having so much fun with, with this, this money that I found.

And so now in the, in the same way that you might, uh, to set up, uh, if you're describing somebody to someone who does not know them very well, you might start like, there's this amazing story that you're going to tell about how, uh, you know, I have buddies in, in college where you're like, man, if I told this story without giving you a context of who they are, you might not understand the full gravity of the story.

Like if I, if I just said, oh yeah, my buddy, yeah, he just, he just decided to, you know, I don't even want to say this stuff.

I'm going to say like he, we just, we did this thing.

You'd be like, wow, that's weird though.

Why is that funny?

I don't understand the context.

But, but if I shared with you all, well, this guy actually, you know, he came from this tough situation and he doesn't understand, you know, or if I said, you know, he came from a different culture.

And so when he, you know, then you would say, oh, I get this story and it makes more sense.

This is some of what Jesus is doing.

And he says, in order for you to understand what I'm going to share next, I have to begin to open your minds about who God is and how he's not exactly how you thought he was going to be.

It says here in Luke 15, verse 11, it says, Jesus continued, there was a man who had two sons.

Luke 15:11

The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate.

So he divided his property between them.

Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth and wild living.

After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have food to spare and here I am starving to death.

I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and against you.

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

Make me like one of your hired servants.

So he got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.

He ran to his son through his arms around him and kissed him.

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

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

But the father said to his servant, quick, bring the best robe, put it on and put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it.

Let's have a feast and celebrate for the son of mine was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

So they began to celebrate.

We'll pause here for a moment.

Jesus, it's important to understand Jesus is telling a story.

This didn't actually happen.

This is a parable of communicating God's love.

There's two sons.

We've got one son who the younger son, it says that he he said, father, give me my share of the estate.

What this would have looked like would be basically he's communicating you are only as good as your money.

You're as and you're as good as as dead to me, basically, because when I when he died, he would receive his estate.

So he said, go ahead.

And before you die, just give me what what I'm owed.

What would have had to happen in order for for this to occur is that this this father would have had to sell part of like part of his his land.

It's not like physical money that he has.

So he's to sell part of his land.

And then he has to basically live on this this borrowed land or at least sell some of it.

And however you figure.

And this would have been this would have brought great shame to the whole family.

It would about great shame to the father to give up so much for the son.

Think about how many people would have been talking, talking behind the father's back.

Did you hear what happened?

Did you hear?

Oh, man.

Yeah.

How did he raise his kid?

Man, I don't raise my kid that way.

And oh, my goodness.

And he said, what?

There's this ceremony that would have what I understand would have had to occur in Jewish culture if you were going to be basically separated not only from your family, but from the whole community.

You were you were essentially as good as a Gentile and even worse.

And that that you were so far removed in a way that there was this ceremony that would have been full of shame, enough shame that for most everybody would have prevented you from saying, just give me my share of the estate.

It was that they would put you in this area and then they'd like, you know, break stuff and not on you, but just to show like, hey, we're there's a full break between who you are and who you want to be and who we are as a culture.

Like we we're not going to acknowledge you at all.

Don't come back.

Basically, son gets together all he has.

And throughout this, you see the father is obliges, says he spends everything.

There's a severe famine.

He's in need.

And so he goes to feed pigs.

You'd understand that that pigs to a Jew are unclean.

You can't eat it.

But he's in the spot where not only is he not allowed to eat it, he's he's helping them get food.

And not only is is he not allowed to eat the pigs, but now he's working with the pigs and he's longing to be in the same space as the pigs are.

He's longing to eat these these pods that the pigs are eating.

Wow.

This is no one gave him anything.

And then it says it says when he came to his senses and we can read that without without context and think, wow, this is when finally it made sense.

Something clicked in his head.

That's what I understand to be not a great translation when he came to a sense.

It's like when he when he thought about himself is kind of a better way or when he viewed where he was at or something to the effect of when I'm considering what's going on in my with me, then it says and this this time, this this whole passages to talk about himself and this is what I want.

This is what I and so he's coming to a sense that this is where I'm at.

He says, I'm going to go back and work for my father.

You think about if if it was shameful to allow your son to to leave, how much more shameful is it to allow your son to work for you?

Like you, you, you, you just got kicked off.

And now, along with all of the other slaves, now your son is working right alongside of them.

If they were talking about you as a father, they were talking about you before.

They're talking about you even more so right now.

He says, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

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

Make me like one of your hired servants.

And we we read that and think, wow, there's an air of humility in that, that I'm no longer worthy.

And what I want to bring up is actually this is it's the same phrasing that that Pharaoh uses as he's talking to Moses.

Says in as he's going to let his people go, but then he decides not to.

And you guys are familiar with the story.

It says in Exodus 10, 16, then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, I've sinned against heaven and sorry, I've sinned against the Lord, your God and against you.

Now, therefore, forgive my sin, please only this once and plead with the Lord, your God only to remove this death from me.

So this guy understands some scripture, but he's pulling the wrong, the wrong bit of it.

So he got up and he goes to his father and says something.

If you were listening, we think it's crazy.

Whatever further length we can understand, it says his father sees him and is filled with compassion for him and he runs and throws his arm around the son.

And so what it means is a few things.

One, the father was looking for him the whole time, right?

The father was waiting for him to come back.

He would have had to like lift up his his his garments in order to run.

This would have been real.

It would have been like it would have been a bad sight.

It would have been like if you if you were to see somebody like a guy running in his underwear, like it's it's not you're not going to like die from it, but it's just like you don't want to see that like nobody wants to see that.

And it's it's embarrassing for the person you see that and you're like that that guy is a fool.

They the people would have seen that and said, wow, this guy's a fool.

Understanding the culture, I guess him running out to go meet his son was also doing everything he can to save his son from the shame of all of the rest of the people in the culture.

Like they would not have let him in.

So the father had to go out and get him and bring him back.

Says I've sinned against heaven and against you.

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

Says the father said to his servant, quick, bring the best robe.

And he just doesn't even acknowledge what the son is saying.

You know, this is how this is.

This is us with God so often, though, you know, it's powerful.

I don't know if you guys can see this is a really well-known painting of by Rembrandt, I believe, which I don't know.

I'm not as I don't maybe Natasha knows more than me.

I don't know.

But but this is this is sounds about right.

It's an image of the the story is called the prodigal son, prodigal, meaning like lavish or extravagant.

Other people have changed it to say like the story of the prodigal father, like you're extravagantly loving to your son because you see here we don't we don't get to see the son's face.

That's not so important.

We see the father's love and that's all you look at.

Where's the son?

What what does he look like?

No, the more important thing is the father's the one that's embracing it.

Wow.

We we are at one point or another and maybe more than one point or another.

We're we're we're this prodigal son.

We think we have all of the answers.

We think we've got it figured out.

We know exactly what to say, what to do.

We we maybe we realize and I think so many of us are in a spot.

Some of us maybe are running far away and are going to be extravagant in our lifestyle.

Probably what might be more fitting is is we're in a spot of realizing, well, we're not we can't we don't have it all figured out.

We can't do it ourselves.

And so let's go back to the father.

Let's organize a way and a system to get in good graces with him or at least to not get in the worst graces with him.

And then after that, we might be able to work our way on up.

This is this is our perception of if this is our perception of religion, then we're just wrong.

There's no way that either either we are sons and daughters or we're not.

There's we're not and we're not going to earn it is is is the truth.

The father doesn't the father says, son, come here.

Come quick.

I I think it's it's it's powerful.

It doesn't say, OK, well, you'll work your way back up.

You'll get there one day.

You keep working.

We're going to put you on a five step program.

He just says, you're you're mine.

You're you're here.

It's it's amazing.

In verse 21, even him saying, father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

He understands a bit that he can even call him.

He can even call him father.

So there's a bit that he understands his love and you see maybe his heart softening.

But then the father gives him no way out.

Just hey, you're back.

And I'm so happy that you're back.

Wow.

So this is how this is how God wants to be with with all of us.

He wants to be someone who says, hey, come come all the way back.

We love you.

You're you're here.

You don't have to work your way back.

You don't have to go to a place and then and then get back.

You're just back.

So maybe you'd identify here that that you're a bit you're a bit like that.

Your perception of God is once I do these good things, then I can come to God.

If you've been living a spiritual life, then I'd say you might be more inclined to be a little bit like this older son, though.

It says in Luke 15 and verse 25.

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.

Well, when he came near the house, he heard music and dancing, called one of the servants, asked him what was going on.

Your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because sorry, because he has him back safe and sound.

The older brother became angry and refused to go in.

His father went out and pleaded with him, but he answered the father.

Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeying and never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him.

My son, father said, you are always with me and everything I have is yours.

But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

The older brother represents anyone who is living and is able to view somebody from the outside in and says, they don't deserve you.

They haven't done, what have they done?

Look at me, look at what I've done.

Applies to anyone, if you view God as being someone who's exclusive or someone who is a punishing God and that's your primary sense of who God is, then this would be somebody that you might be inclined with.

I'm doing good, so good things should happen to me.

When something bad happens, they've got to pay the price.

The older brother, he knows his father, but there's still a distance there.

I wonder how many times, if you were to get inside the older brother's heart, how many times did he obey because he thought, well, if I don't obey, then my dad's going to hate me.

Or if I don't obey, then my dad's going to look down on me.

Or if I don't obey, then my dad is just, he's not going to treat me well.

And maybe if I obey enough, he'll give me what I really want.

I bet you we can do that with God.

I'm going to, we're a church, we read our Bibles because if we don't, well, maybe God won't, I won't, we can never go to these places, but it's easy to.

I feel like I, maybe if I do what God wants, then he's going to give me what I really want.

Maybe if I follow God, then he's going to give me what I really want.

You know, the Bible says, you know, follow God, he'll give you the desires of your heart.

What that's meaning to communicate is not that if I follow God, he's going to make me rich.

If I follow God, he's going to give me a great job.

If I follow God, he's going to give me all of what I really want.

What it's meaning to communicate is if you entrust yourself and give yourself to God, he's going to show himself to you.

He's going to give you all of this desire because you're connecting with him.

The deeper our relationship with God is, the more we're going to desire to connect with him, the more he's going to connect with us.

As we close up, as we kind of close up this lesson, but close up lesson one of many year project, but at least if it's at least a few month project or many month project, I want to close just with this idea that what the father says to this older son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours.

Think about God saying that to you.

You're always with me.

Everything I have is yours.

You're always with me.

The Holy Spirit's here.

The Holy Spirit has the opportunity to dwell and live within all of us.

And Tim French is going to be able to experience that in a couple of short hours, right?

God's presence is he's showing himself at every step of the way.

He's trying to show himself to you, to us.

I'm here.

I'm present.

I want you to walk with me.

All that I have is yours.

Do you really, do you believe that you're rich in God?

We have everything we need.

Do you believe you're rich in God?

All of us or many of us or virtually none of us are going to be rich according to the world.

Some of us, we're not going to be rich according to even hear me for even our relationships.

We might not identify.

Someone from the outside in might not say, oh, you have very rich relationships.

Perhaps not.

But all of us have the opportunity to be rich in God, rich in the way we walk with him, rich in the way we know him, rich in our understanding of him.

He's ready for us.

And he's right there asking us, please, please come closer.

We're standing at the beginning of this journey.

And so as we close, my prayer is that we identify where are we missing in our view of God?

Where are we missing?

Is it in the way?

I don't view God as being this loving.

And because of that, I just want him for all of the promises that he gives.

Maybe it's, I don't really, you know, God is good, but I've got to work my way back.

I got to do some things in order to get back with God.

And so I got to do this, this, and this.

And then maybe he'll get me to a decent spot.

Or maybe you feel like, no, I'm doing all this stuff, but he hasn't given anything back to me.

Wherever it's at, or whatever shade of God that you have that's a little bit off, my prayer this week is that we identify that and begin to work through it.

Right now we're going to pray and then we'll be done and we can pick up our children.

Dear God, we're grateful for you.

We're grateful for your love.

We know we can't measure up.

I just ask that we will understand it better.

Lord, I realize if we understood your love, as we understand your love, like we'll just grow closer to you.

We'll just be inclined to follow you.

You will make it so that we can't say no.

Anybody who is able to view you in the right way is not able to say no to you.

And it's not in a way of extortion or anything.

It's a way of gratefulness for you that this is the only best response that I can give.

And so we're asking that you allow us to see you more fully.

Allow us the self-awareness to see where we're missing it in our relationship with you.

Lord, I thank you for this journey.

I'm just so grateful that you're with us and you're alongside us and you go before us at every step of the way.

We love you, God.

This is in Jesus.

This is in your name that we pray.

Amen.

Awesome.

You guys are dismissed.

Have a great Sunday.

Pick up your children.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.