Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Our Homecoming Journey | March 28th, 2021

Hey, welcome to KCC Church at Home.

My name is Brody Callman, and I'm the lead pastor here at KCC.

So glad to have you with us.

As always, I encourage you to go ahead, share message, let people know that church is live.

And we encourage everyone to join together, connect together, hear the message together, be commenting together, listening together.

I think it makes a difference when we're able to share from a common heart and you're catching the message together.

So go ahead and do that.

And while you're doing that, I just want to say that this has been one of the best series that I feel I have grown in.

And it's not a particular explosive series, but it's a series that is good for every individual, for those who are young, those who are old, if you're a teenager, if you're an adult, if you're religious, or if you're non-religious, if you're someone who has never heard the message before, this series has been good for you because what it's done is it's taken us on this journey where we were once far from God or where you may have been from God.

And it's called us to a closer place, to live closer in a closer, connected relationship to God.

And so if you are someone who's had questions, my hope is that your questions have been heard and your questions have been answered.

And if you're someone who's saying, you know, I've I was already close, I already had experienced freedom, then I hope you realize that there's more freedom.

Because the message of this series is really that there is more, that God has more for us.

It's the whole message of the cross, that there's more love, that there's more connection, that there's more opportunity because of Jesus.

So this message, I hope it's been for you.

If you have taken one step closer, if you have taken a leap closer in your relationship with God, and you can look back and say, I was at a certain point a month and a half ago, but I'm at this point today, then I've done my job and we've been successful because we want to help encourage you in your relationship with Him.

So as you've shown up this week, I'm sure you've shown up with notepad, paper, you've got your phone ready to like take notes and writing down what God is sharing for you.

Uh, I'm sure that you're gonna be sharing that with other people.

We're just expecting great spiritual growth within everyone who's listening today.

If you need prayer, go ahead and message on the chat here, or go ahead and throw us a message on our on our connection card on our website.

We want to continue to pray for you.

And if you're one of those who've been faithfully giving and continuing to give through the season that we're in, thank you so much.

Continue to give, continue doing well.

We're praying God's blessings upon you, your family, your businesses, your work, everything you're doing.

May you experience the prosperity that God has called you to live in.

Now, 1 John chapter 3, verse 1 and 2 starts off with this incredible, uh, incredible cry.

1 John 3:1

It says, See, can you see it?

What great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

But dear friends, now we are children of God.

Would you say, I am a child of God?

I am a child of God, and what we will be has not yet been known, but we know that when Christ appears, we will be like him and we will see him as he is.

This is such a powerful scripture.

When we witness something amazing, oftentimes we cheer, we shout, we celebrate, and when we hear this message that God's love has been lavished upon us, not just generous, generous or minute uh you know, pouring out of God's love over us, it was a shower, it was a torrential downpour of God's love that he poured out upon us.

So much so he took us as people who were estranged from him, and now he calls us his children.

He identifies us as his, he gives us his name, he makes us inheritors and heirs of who he is and what he has, and he includes us in the journey.

But when we hear this message, there should be something inside of us that just whoops, it celebrates.

And I know I'm by myself in this room here, and I know you may be alone in your room, but is this worth celebrating?

And when Jesus began to share this message to everyone who heard it, there were people who were expressing like disbelief.

I can't believe it.

God would want to know me.

It doesn't matter what my story was, God wants me to be a part of his story.

And people were celebrating this fact, but there were some people who didn't.

Some got angry, and and it was an emotion that was unexpected.

But when the Pharisees, and these were people who were just religious and legal, uh legal caretakers of the day, when they heard this message, it was almost too wonderful for them to understand, and they couldn't understand why Jesus was sharing this message with people who were undeserving.

They were sinners, they were far from God, they were close to God, they deserved it all.

But Jesus was saying, this same opportunity belongs to both those who are close and those who are far.

And their anger was aimed at Jesus and his friends.

They couldn't believe that these people and that Jesus were actually having this conversation and that he was actually having fun.

He was eating, he was uh having meals with sinners, and he rubbed elbows with the greedy tax collectors and prostitutes were preparing a meal, and he was sitting at tables with them, answering their questions, having conversations with them.

And Jesus was smiling while doing it and enjoying this teaching that he was giving.

And the people, of course, were drinking up this life-giving message that Jesus shared.

And Jesus noticed the Pharisees, and Jesus noticed their heart's intention.

They didn't have to say anything, he just knew what they were thinking.

And when he knew what they were thinking, he went on to share a story.

And this parable he went on to share was this parable of a loving father.

And Jesus didn't begin this story with a with the words rebel or pervert or prodigal or this like uh degenerate.

He simply said there was a father who had a son.

Actually, two sons.

He had two sons.

And at the end of the story, Jesus' focus was actually on the loving father and not on the sins of the child.

And Jesus spent his time making sure that they understood that this message was a message about the loving father.

And Bible scholars have often called this the story of the prodigal, the story of the lost son, the story of the sinning son.

And their commentators have missed this very important point that Jesus wanted to focus on the loving father.

And I think that's what we need to hear today: that we have a loving father, and we need to see our journey in life through the lens, not of a prodigal.

I was a prodigal, I was lost, I was a sinner, I needed help, I had stepped away from God, and I know what it's like to have no other options but turning up and saying, help to the Father and the one who loves me and is ready to care for me.

And so this message was about the loving Father.

Religion often focuses on the sin and the sinner and not on the gracious father.

So our world lens, the glasses we put on, have got to be able to see the loving father, the gracious father, living in his presence, living with acceptance in his home, living with understanding from where we're currently at, and and understanding the gracious side of him being able to pull us from a pig pen and bring us to a table.

A better subtitle for this parable would have been the parable of the loving father.

And I remember what Jesus said to the religious leaders of the day there.

He said it in Matthew 23, verse 13.

Matthew 23:13

He said to them, He said, Woe to you, which means, watch out, be careful.

Teachers of the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites.

These were strong words from Jesus.

He says, You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, you shut the doors in their face, and you yourselves do not even enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

And so Jesus was extremely upset.

He's saying you're shutting the door to people in their face of heaven, and you're not even going in.

And so this trap that Jesus saw, because he understood that this religious mindset was controlling people of his time.

And my prayer is that today, as we look forward to Easter, we would not be exclusive of people, but we would recognize every person as not only loved by our Father, but welcome into the Father's house, welcome to come in, welcome to ask questions, welcome to critique, welcome to listen to a message and hear about our Father in heaven, who is their father.

They may not know him yet, but he is their father.

And so this vic this first impression piece that we carry regarding people is sometimes a heavy piece that we carry.

And we're all guilty of this when we look and we assess the situation and we make our minds up about people, who we think they are, and whether they're a good fit for the church, for life, for people.

Would this guy be a good fit for my daughter?

No, and you just you cut people off right away.

And in this present um space, we create an impossible test for people to come to find God.

Because we say, no matter uh no matter where you're at, you have to be perfect before you come into the house of God.

But in order to find perfection, you need to get into the house of God.

It's this cyclical trap that says, I need to be perfect to come.

So, but in order to be perfect, I need to first come into the church.

I need to meet God first.

So this religious trap shuts the door in the face of people.

And I want you to know that KCC and our church has an open door.

The people need to come into the door.

They're welcome to come in.

They're welcome to come in with their questions.

They're welcome, regardless of the baggage that they're carrying, to come into the Father's house and find a place where they belong.

Because whether they know it or not, they belong here in the Father's house.

He's called all people to come in.

Now, there's a process where when they come in, they'll meet the Father and He'll speak and He'll instruct and He'll convict and convince, and His love will convict people of righteousness, of how they should be living.

But it's that opportunity for people to first cross the threshold of that door, come into the home.

And this is where we love, and this is where love gets showcased.

And Jesus knew God's love so powerfully, and he knew that the Pharisees were shutting that door down, he needed to object.

See, the religious leaders were focused on the law.

Well, Jesus wanted them to see the giver of the law.

They were awed by the creator God, but they didn't know how to enter into the creator's presence.

They didn't know the Father, and they didn't know their true identity as sons of the Father.

And this ran a complication, and there was confrontation that eventually caused Jesus to lay his life down on the cross for people, to bridge that gap himself, so that it didn't rely on other people to pave the way to the Father.

He became the way and the only way to the Father.

Jesus himself, he knew the Father and He knew his own identity.

And every time people asked him about who he was, he would respond and say, I know the Father, and the Father knows me.

I know who I am and whose I belong to.

And this passion of Jesus and this life of Jesus was lived through the eyes of who the Father saw him to be.

So not only did he look through the lens of the Father, he saw people the way Father saw people, but he saw himself the way Father saw him.

And it's such a powerful point because when we realize the love and we realize the grace and we realize the compassion that God has for us, we're willing to extend that love, extend that grace, extend that compassion to a lost and a dying world.

And that is why Jesus went to the cross, and that's why he went to set the record straight.

He needed to object and confront.

And so he rebuked them and uh from being far from the truth, and he tried to showcase a way for us to realize the truth of the Father's love for us.

So scripture tells us that Jesus grew up with this spirit and the father by his side, and that he was full of the Holy Spirit, and he knew who he was, and it was clear how God saw him, and no one had to tell him second-hand stories about how much the Father loved him.

He just drew on the Father's love.

And it's so important that you and I not just listen to a message, not just uh write notes down or live our day with this prayer that goes to heaven, but we live our life based out of the revelation of the Father's love towards us and how we can live connected to him.

So everything Jesus encountered, he encountered with the recognition that the Father was there.

And we see this demonstrated quite vividly when Jesus got baptized.

And this relationship that was so special that he had between Father God and himself was made clear on that day.

We caught a glimpse of it in the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.

He went to be baptized, and John baptized him.

And when he got into the water in front of a crowd of witnesses, and John cautiously went in and said, I'll do I'll do this for you, but I know that your sandals aren't even the sandals I could fit into.

Like I can't walk in your shoes.

And Jesus said, You need to do this.

And as soon as he did it, the Bible says the sky opened up, and a dove came down and rested on his shoulder, like this gentle representation of who the Father is.

And this voice from heaven came and said, This is my son.

There was an immediate acknowledgement.

This is my son who I love.

Isn't that great?

Who I love and in whom I am well pleased.

Now, Jesus hadn't even done anything yet, particularly special.

He hadn't gone to the cross, he hadn't lived the three years of ministry and life and miracles, he hadn't experienced persecution and uh disconnection from people, but he was still loved.

And the father said, even though you haven't done anything, just because you are who you are, Jesus, I'm well pleased with you.

You're loved.

And Jesus not only saw and heard this, but the people saw and heard this.

And Peter, or sorry, John the Baptist heard this, and they validated and it who he was, and this whole experience validated his message from that point on, and that led him into his ministry.

Our whole life has to be led from that moment.

I don't know how many times Jesus went back to the moment where he said, Man, I remember that time when a dove came down, the heavens opened up, and I heard the voice of my father.

He said, I love you, I'm pleased with you.

And he said, Well, the message you have is something everyone needs to hear.

Listen to him.

That message is so powerful.

And because of this amazing relationship with the Father, out of that relationship, all of the miracles, all of the mighty words and the things he did, from raised, seeing people raised from the dead to healing the blind and cleansing the lepers, those with sicknesses and diseases, to sharing words that brought freedom to the hearts and liberated people.

All of that came out of that revelation that we have a loving father.

That he had a loving father.

And that loving father is who imprinted that incredible mandate and mission in his heart.

And my heart just desires to live from that place.

Where before there was any type of performance, he was loved.

God was pleased with him.

He lived in pleasure, the pleasure of the Father.

Before there was anything, he lived from that place.

So everything else that came out of him was a result of that great, incredible love.

And now that love that exists within the core of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, is the highest and purest form of love.

And this love and this honor that holds God, that God is love, holds him together and there's no impurity in it.

There's no wickedness or evil in it, and there's no failing in it.

It is pure that when you soak in that love, and I realize that that baptism of love, that formation of love, changes who I am, and when I live out of that place, that is where real life begins.

And that opportunity to live life begins.

So in allowing Jesus to go to the cross and demonstrating not only the Father's love for his son, but the Son's love for humanity, and he gave his life up for all of us, was such an incredible showcase to the world that the resonating sound, that vibration, that sound would be heard for thousands upon thousands of years as we're celebrating next week.

Two thousand plus years of this great moment where Jesus went to the cross and he loved the world so much, the whole world.

Every individual, that love that the Father had placed in him that exploded out of his heart, that he said he was willing to go to the cross for us, to be that ransom for redemption for every person, so that every individual would experience a restored heart, a new heart, a new beginning, a new life.

That's impressive.

That's powerful.

That'll make a difference in my life.

That'll impress a new perspective on my heart.

And our response to that is a powerful response as well.

As we see the love of the Father for the Son, the Son for the world, and now our love towards others.

That first is a love that we need to accept as a free gift of God.

And when we experience and embrace this free gift that can only be received, it can't be achieved.

Jesus did it all on the cross.

We can just receive this gift.

We learn to receive it with a grateful heart and an open heart.

And I wonder how many people have missed out on the opportunity to say, to lift up their hands and just an open embrace and say, Father, I receive you and I receive the love that you passed through Jesus to me.

Let me encounter the love of the Father.

Let me encounter the love of the one that would run out and find me first.

Even though I was a sinner, you died for me.

Even though I was the one who was rejecting you, you came and you died for me.

Even though I took the inheritance, I took this great life that you've given me, like the son in the story of the loving Father who took the inheritance and ran away and wasted it on just material things.

Thank you for welcoming me back.

Thank you for creating a space at your table for me.

Thank you for clothing me with a new robe and putting a new ring on my hand and putting bathing me and putting on fresh shoes and preparing a feast for me.

Thank you.

How often do we say thank you?

What I call this parable of the loving father, or I come to look at is the parable of the loving father, this fact that we tend to ignore as we see the two sons, but really there's a third son in this in the speaker of the Son of Jesus, who's telling this parable.

And we think about how he went to the cross, and even today, as it's the Sunday before Easter, and we remember this journey that Jesus will go on.

The journey to the cross, the journey to the grave, the journey to heaven, to the sky.

We think of this journey.

I just remember John 3.16, for God so loved.

Remember how we started?

How he loved the world, he lavished us with his love.

He gave his one and only Son.

Whoever believes in him should not perish, but experience and have eternal life.

This life that doesn't include this life that includes the joy, the peace, the compassion that the Father has to us, that wipes away every bit of fear, every bit of shame, every bit of blame that we may live with.

As we blame ourselves for the things that we've encountered, God gives us that fresh opportunity and calls us a new creation.

We become new because of Him, and we rejoice about this.

And so when we look at this, this spirit, we say, I am a son now.

I'm no longer a slave.

I have an opportunity to live, not as one who's uh in required to live a certain way for someone else, but now I can live as a son who's living from a place of being loved.

And when I live from that place of love, I live with a uh a heart that's free to be able to love back and to love others.

And and we experience this as the spirit of adoption.

I read it in Galatians 4, verses 1 through 7.

Galatians 4:1–7

This one part here where it says it says, even so when we were children, we were under the bondage in the elements of this world, we were in slavery.

But when the fullness of time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you're sons, God sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts that cries out, have a father, and we're no longer a slave, but we are a son, a child, and if a son, now an heir of God through Christ.

And so God chose us, and God chose us in that moment of time when we had no other choice, no other option.

God chose us.

We're no longer slaves.

I'd like to close today with this illustration.

Um, it's from an excerpt from a sermon by Pastor Bill Lobbs that illustrates what it's like to live free in Christ.

Because oftentimes we've all got that opportunity to walk as sons, and we've been taking you on this journey from slavery to sonship, from being far from God, living life on our own, to living in his home, in his family, a part of his family, uh, connected and relating to him one-on-one.

And on July 31st, 1838, on the island of Jamaica, a man named William Nibbs gathered 10,000 slaves together.

And they were going to have a gathering where they were a praise gathering.

And it was quite the party, quite the service.

And they were celebrating something that it was really incredible that had happened in Jamaica.

It was a new emancipation proclamation, and it was abolishing the act of slavery on the island.

A pretty powerful act.

And they had built in an immense coffin, this massive coffin, and inside this coffin they placed all the elements related to their slavery that they had experienced as slaves.

They threw their slave clothes on, the branding tools or items, some of the tools they were forced to live in, the shackles, they they threw in the fetters, all the things that had been identifying them as slaves and represented this slavery system.

And they were what they put them into this coffin.

And as the evening was coming to an end, at the first stroke of midnight, they nailed the coffin shut, they lowered it into the ground, and they all began to cheer, the monster is dying.

And on each stroke of towards midnight, each toll of the bell, they yelled out, the monster is dying, the monster is dying, and the monster is dying.

And at the last point, at the last stroke of that bell, 10,000 people screamed out, the monster is dead.

The monster is dead.

Let's bury him.

And they they screwed the coffin lid shut, threw it into the ground, and they began to party.

And I think of this incredible party that must have happened at that point.

A party as people realized that they didn't have to live as slaves, that they were free.

But sadly, there's a tragedy to this story.

On the other sides of the island, while many people were rejoicing, this new opportunity and new freedom, there were some slaves that lived in remote areas of the island, and these slaves didn't get to hear what had happened and what legal acts had taken place, and they didn't realize that they were free.

They didn't know for some for years that the proclamation had become law, and they still continued to serve their masters as slaves.

And they didn't understand that they were, if they had chosen to be, free.

And this ignorance of the law kept them in bondage.

Now, it's a sadder story today because today, if you hear this message of the cross, as the world gathers together to hear about Easter, we're going to be hearing about the cross of Christ that took us who were lost and brought us home, us who were far from God and brought us home.

That there are many people who yet do not know this message, that God, the loving Father, is calling us home.

And Jesus became the messenger, and he became the one, the one to sacrifice his life for all mankind.

So I'm encouraging all of us to hear this message today, to gather it in your hearts and begin to meditate on it, begin to bring it up and respond to it in our own lives.

That not only has the coffin been nailed shut, not only is the monster dead, but the monster is in the ground.

And the monster can't get out any longer.

And we will never have to experience that slavery again because of what Jesus has done on the cross and because of what Jesus has done in our lives.

We have this loving Father, great love the Father had for us.

He lavished it upon us.

He's called us to be children of God.

And so this journey, if you don't see yourself as a son, a daughter of God, a child of God, the truth today is that God loves you.

You have a loving father, and he's calling you home, he's calling you who are far off to come close.

Allow me to pray with you today.

Father, we thank you for this message of freedom.

We thank you for this message that sets us free.

Father, for those who are listening today who have never experienced the loving Father, have never experienced the love that was lavishly poured out upon humanity.

Father, I ask today that hearts would be opened.

And Father, would you pour out your spirit?

Would you pour out your heart?

Would you pour out your words?

Would you pour out your the life-giving uh spirit upon people?

Father, as this happens, I know that when that happens, all destruction, all filth, all bad memories, bad habits, bad hangups have to leave.

And Father, at that moment their miracles happen.

Father, I ask that you would just have a baptism with the people that are listening today in their own homes.

Lord, that you would baptize them in love, that you would form them into the children that you've called them to be.

Lord, form their mind, form their perspective, form their eyes that they would be able to see.

And Father, for all of us who know your love already, who have experienced it, Father, would you show it to us even in a greater way?

We ask for more, Lord.

More love, more of that power in our heart, more of that life in our spirit, Lord, that we would be able to again bring the love that's running over in our life and share it with others.

As we prepare for this next week, Father, we prepare with hope in our hearts for others to come to know you.

Father, would you uh open up our hearts to embrace every bit that you have, shower it upon us as well.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

If you prayed that prayer with me today, and that prayer was came alive in your own spirit and is shifting you today.

We want to help move you forward in your faith, move you one step closer in your journey.

And I encourage you to connect with us, go online, email, phone us, write a comment wherever you may be watching today.

We want to reach out to you and help you on that journey.

God bless you.

Have an incredible week.

Amen.