There Goes That Man | The God Who Runs | Chad Bruegman

So uh earlier this fall, um my wife and I had a first.

We've been married 22 years, so we don't get as many firsts as we used to get.

Uh but this was a first.

Some of you don't know what this is like.

Some of you have been there done that, you're pros at this, but we uh we sent our oldest son off to college.

We got in our car and he got in his car, and we took a very boring drive through West Texas, through New Mexico, and into Phoenix, Arizona, and sent him off to university.

And uh man, I don't know what you guys felt if you've been there before and done that, but it was to me uh highly emotional.

Talk about being in your uh Phil's and we had been there for a couple days, and on the last night we were gonna be there before we left early that morning, we got my son all situated in his room, and it was a late night, and we were exhausted, and we got back to the hotel.

In fact, just just you probably don't know my son.

This is just me being a proud dad right now.

Uh he told us to mean mug in the picture, whatever that means.

He's actually a really nice kid, and that's as mean as I could look right there, but we did it.

Um, and right after that picture was taken, we went into our hotel room and uh got ready for bed, and we're super tired.

And uh I was actually in bed, and he came and he sat down at the edge of my bed, and my wife was also uh in bed.

We were like the 1950s, she was in the other hotel bed, I was in this one.

And uh he sat on the edge of our bed and he just started talking to his mother and I, and he just caught us so off guard.

Um it's what every parent deserves, but not every parent gets, but we got it that day.

I couldn't believe it.

He just started going off on about a five-minute diatribe about all the sacrifices his mom and I made um to allow him to be where he was at.

I didn't mean for that, I'm sorry.

I usually, if you're visiting with us or you're coming back from Easter, first of all, welcome.

I don't cry a lot.

This is um, I'm doing great, life is good.

It's just when I talk about my kids, man, and I miss my son.

He'll be home in a few weeks, and I can't wait to go get him.

But um he just he just poured out his heart about how grateful he was for his mother and I.

And man, I just could not believe it.

It was one of those moments you'll freeze in time, and that it you'll you'll draw back on it when you need energy in life to do it for our next three kids and to uh do our best to live a life that's um worthy of something like that.

And it was just beautiful.

And then um we had to get up at like five in the morning, he stayed, you know, typical kid sleeping in.

I kissed him on his forehead, and we got in the car and we started heading back to Houston.

And within about one minute of driving out of the hotel parking lot, I just started sobbing.

And uh I'm not a really big crier.

My wife's probably seen me cry maybe eight times in our whole marriage, and I kid you not, I bawled for an hour straight.

First hour of the whole my my wife, who's a huge crier, very emotional, beautiful heart, way better of a human than I am.

Um she'll cry five times a day, and then every time she says this, why am I crying?

And I'm like, Do we have to go over this again?

It's because you cried anything.

But she was so shocked, you know.

I thought I was gonna be taking care of her the whole way home.

She's just looking at me for an hour straight, and then finally she's like, Are you alright?

Do you need me to drive?

And I'm like, No, but we need to pull over and get some Gatorade because I'm dehydrated.

I've cried literally so much.

But it was just it was just 19 years of just being flooded with all of the memories, the good, the bad, even some of the ugly, and just being overwhelmed that God let me be a father.

And yeah, to all the fathers and mothers, future um, and uh I remember drawing back on that moment in light of this series, there goes that man, and I just want to share week one, the heart of this series, and I hope you hear my heart.

For the last several months, God's been doing a bit of uh what I'd call a revival in my heart, where it's like that verse in in the Psalms where David says, Hey God, would you restore to me the joy of my salvation?

And uh God's been doing that.

Um, it won't be the last time, he's done it many other times, but here's the revival that's been happening in my heart.

I have just been getting these moments with God where I am overwhelmed by just how much he loves us.

And I think that we preachers and pastors, I'll speak about us, I think we don't nearly even tap the surface of how much God loves for us.

There isn't an inexhaustible love proven to us in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that is so much bigger and more powerful towards our lives than I think we sometimes get.

I think I think ri religion just sometimes, and I'm so guilty of this as a pastor, it can get us caught up in so much of the nuances and so much of the lesser important things, but when it really comes back to our relationship with God and why we were put on this earth and breathing in the first place, was just to experience this exchange of agape, radical, sacrificial, unconditional love that God had always planned to give us from the start and even at our worst, never stopped giving it to us, even when we were giving next to nothing, if anything at all, in return.

The love of God never stops.

It's inexhaustible.

Ephesians says that God's storehouse of mercy is inexhaustible.

We can't be bad enough to out-resource his goodness.

And I know that's hard to accept because every other system in the world, every other way we were trained from birth has this quid pro quo, this give and this take, and we look for justice in it, and we look for equality in it, and we look for fairness in it.

But when we talk about the just the pure, unadulterated implications of the gospel, listen to me, there is nothing fair about it.

There is nothing on the surface that seems just about it.

It feels like a fairy tale.

Uh, it feels like unless you've experienced that it is way too good to be true.

And so, what this whole series is for the next month, I have been praying, God, for whatever reason, you just sparked that revival in me, and it's been restoring to me the joy of my salvation.

And listen to me, the joy of the Lord is our strength, right?

I've just been praying, God, could could you just do this in me so that I can pass it on as a leader to everyone else, and we'll see where we go with it.

But I am believing, I want every campus listening right now to hear me, I am believing that in the next month, as we go through this series, there goes that man, that there is going to be a revival in this church of how much the love of God uh has for us, and that here's the beautiful thing.

John put it this way: why do we love ourselves and why do we love others really well?

There's only one pathway to that.

Because he first loved us.

It's not by trying harder, it's not by pulling up your bootstraps.

It's not hoping each year you just get a little kinder and nicer to yourself, a little kinder and nicer to your neighbor, other people that we know in our lives.

No, it's you really want to love people the way God has loved us.

You have to first let God unconditionally and radically love you, even and especially in life and seasons when it makes the least amount of sense.

So that's the series we're gonna start.

I am starting off today by talking about a kid who hit rock bottom.

Because if there's one place in life that I've experienced where God's presence was the most beautiful and the most powerful and the most life-changing and the most overwhelming, it's the few times in life where Chad Brugman has hit rock bottom.

You want to know how much God loves you.

Man, if you've ever hit rock bottom and then you surrendered yourself to him in that moment where you had nothing left to give, you will see the presence of God and the power of God and the provision of God overtake you ironically when you probably feel like you least deserved it.

So, week one, we talk about what it's like to be at rock bottom.

The God of rock bottom.

Week two, we're gonna talk about the other place I found God's presence so strong, is when you're at the end of the rope.

You've exercised all resource for something to change, for something to happen.

And you're left with nothing else except for surrender to God.

His presence is so powerful there.

And then in week three, don't miss this month, is what I'm saying.

Another place I found God is in the area of risk.

And I'm not talking about uncalculated risk.

I'm talking about when you, for the glory of Jesus, you put yourself out on a limb.

You want to see the presence of God, the love of God, powerful and active in your life?

Get out on a limb for his glory and watch how he shows up.

So today we go to rock bottom story.

This is by far my favorite parable in all of Scripture.

Mark Twain called what we're about to read the greatest short story ever told.

Mind you, he was an atheist.

He had no reason to brag on Jesus.

Jesus didn't spend a hundred hours writing the greatest short story ever told, he just told it from the abundance of being God in the flesh.

This is famously known as the parable of the prodigal son.

Let's read.

Now, the tax collectors and sinners, the translation, if you're new to church, in first century Judea, this was the scum of the earth.

This was the worst of the worst.

This was enemy number one of the state right here, tax collectors.

And then they had the category of sinners, which is hilarious, as if we all haven't sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But the very religious people, this is who they used to make themselves feel better about themselves.

This was the group of people they used to say, I might not be perfect, but I'm a whole lot better than them.

Surely God will let me in.

Surely God will find some value in me.

And Jesus never has any of that because that is not how the kingdom of God works.

So now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathered around.

They wanted to hear Jesus.

They wanted to be around Jesus.

But the Pharisees, right, the leaders of the religious folk, and the teachers of the law muttered.

Everybody say muttered.

I just like that word.

They muttered.

This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Jesus was, at this point in his ministry, considered a rabbi, a teacher.

They came to learn from him.

And the rules with the rabbis was you got nowhere near tax collectors and sinners.

Why?

Because according to the Jewish law, it would make you ceremonially unclean.

You didn't associate with those kind of people.

You kept as far as distance from them as possible to separate your life from their lives, and yet this rabbi, so unconventional in how he did, they loved him.

They couldn't get enough of them, and these Pharisees, they don't like it.

They're feeling threatened by it.

They're feeling insulted by it.

And so they what?

They mutter.

This man welcomes sinners, and he actually goes and eats with them.

And he seems to not even care about the Torah implications of it.

Becoming ceremonially unclean.

Let's really not pass over this too fast.

Marion Webster defines mutter as this: to say something in a low or barely audible voice, especially in dissatisfaction or irritation.

Let me tell you how that would have played out when Jesus walked up.

He probably would have met a few of the other rabbis and Pharisees and teached the law.

Jesus, it's great to see you, man.

It's always nice to see you.

You're doing such a great job.

Look at these crowds.

How do you do it, man?

He's like, Great to see you, brother.

Shalom.

You know, go in peace.

He walks off.

As soon as he walks off, hey, between you and me and the wall.

This is muttering.

Between you and me and the wall.

Do you see who that guy eats with?

Can you believe this?

This guy has gone full rogue.

We don't know what to do with him.

He's embarrassing all of us.

He's making our profession look pretty bad.

What's that?

Jesus?

Oh, Jesus.

Nothing but love.

You about to talk?

So, what I was saying was like, this is what's happening.

And here's the problem that the Pharisees hadn't learned yet.

I don't know that they ever learned it.

Jesus knows the thought, the heart, the words, and the intentions of every person that he's around there.

And so Jesus speaks to their muttering.

And here's how important what we're going to learn and remind ourselves of in the next month is.

Jesus, one and one time only, tells three parables.

Not one.

Back to back to back.

Three parables, which denotes whatever he's about to talk about in these three parables must be at the foundation and the core of what every other teaching is all about.

And spoiler alert, you know what it's about?

The radical, scandalous love of God that can be for anyone and everyone that is found in Christ Jesus.

And so he starts to tell it, let's pick up in verse 11.

Jesus, excuse me, so let me give you some backdrop to be fair.

He tells the first two, the first one, we love it, it's a feel-good moment.

Right?

There's a hundred sheep in a pen, safe and sound, but then one of them escapes and he's not safe anymore.

He's on his own.

He's out in the dangerous part of the world.

And Jesus tells the parable where the good shepherd, what's he do?

He leaves the 99 that are safe and sound to go and find the one.

And then I love the language Jesus chose to use.

He said, and then he picks up that sheep and puts them on his shoulder.

He carries the weight to get him back home.

He does the work to bring them back home.

He does the chasing.

He does the wooing.

Puts them on his shoulders.

And then it says, joyfully brings him back home.

And then he goes on to say this I tell you the truth.

When one tax collector or sinner repents and comes home to Jesus, heaven goes crazy.

You want to get heaven partying?

Then let somebody who was lost become found.

Let somebody who was dead in life become alive again.

Then he doubles down and he tells the same thing different way.

He says, There was a woman and she had 10 silver coins, a lot of money back then.

And she loses just one.

You still got 90%.

That's pretty good, right?

But it says she wrecks the whole house, throwing everything up.

We've been there with your iPhone, right?

That's our silver coin.

Where's it at?

I can't breathe without it in my hand.

I won't make it.

She tears the house apart, she finds the coin, and Jesus says, What'd she do?

She invites all the friends and neighbors over to have a celebration, says this coin was lost, but now it's found, and angels in heaven start to rejoice.

And then he gets into the greatest short story ever told.

It's the parable of the prodigal sons.

Jesus continued, There was a man who had two sons.

We're going to look at the younger one today.

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

Now, we're about to see what we would define usually as bad parenting right here on the father's part.

But remember, in this parable, the father represents the heart of God.

The father divided his property between them.

He let them have it.

In this culture, to ask for your inheritance any time before your parents were on their deathbed was one of the most dishonoring things you could do in culture.

Do you know what the son was saying in this young age where the father still has a lot of life ahead of him?

He's essentially saying this, commentators tell us when he asked for his inheritance so early.

He's saying, You're dead to me.

Imagine that.

What if my son, that night on the bed, as we were dropping off of college, went that direction with it?

You're dead to me.

Now, mom and dad, I'd like you to sign over all your assets to me, and I'd like you to take whatever money you have in the bank.

And as I go off to college, because I'm gonna have a lot of fun because it's college and my brain's still forming, and we're gonna go crazy, so I need everything that I got.

I know, mom and dad, I didn't earn it.

I know I didn't work for it, I know it's on the back of your guys' sacrifice, but there's just something into me that feels entitled to it.

Because you know, college and there's girls and beer and things like that, and stuff we shouldn't do, but we might, you know, all those things that come with college.

Imagine if my son said that to me.

That's that's what's happening here.

It's like the ultimate disrespect, and what's the father do?

Come on, parents, let's not let's not fake it in church, man.

That feels like bad parenting.

The father goes, okay.

You know what that inheritance represents?

Mercy, grace, the ultimate currency of the kingdom.

It represents God being the creator of everything, God being the maker of everything, including life and breath, and one of us in creation having the audacity to go, God, I know I didn't work for it, and I know I didn't deserve it, and I know I didn't earn it of it.

I know that it's all yours, but uh, you promised me that I could be a part of it and an heir of it and an inheritance of it, and so I'd like to take mine early and go do life the way I think I can do life.

And and that's where we're at, and there's something about God that says it's the last thing I want.

But in order for us to really love each other, I have to let you choose.

So here you go.

I love you, son.

And if you ever want to come back, we'll leave the light on for you, and I'll be waiting.

He goes on to say this.

Not long after that, the younger son got together.

All he had, set off for a distant country.

I gotta get as far away from mom and dad as I can.

And there he what?

Squandered all his wealth and wild living.

Typical college kid.

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

Now, let me stop there before we read what's next.

A lot of times you could read a story like that, and we could put our own interpretation on it.

I know I've probably done it before.

We can see, oh yeah, you want to go against God, you want to rebel against the Father, oh yeah, you want to go and try and do life on your own terms.

Well, guess what?

God's a judge, and so here comes a famine your way, buddy.

It's just a matter of time.

You can't live recklessly like this for too long before a famine enters your life, before you hit what we call rock bottom.

But can I say something that I hope is really encouraging, especially to some of you parents right now who have that prodigal kid, they're in that season.

That famine was not judgment from God on that kid.

You know what it was?

Mercy.

Rock bottom is awful when it comes to practical implications, but sometimes the most beautiful, gracious thing God can do is just let you go and try it on your own.

Just give you what you want, let you have it for a while.

And he's not up there making things hard for you.

He just knows how that always ends up.

It's the natural progression of doing things outside of the will of your creator, is eventually resource will run dry, and you will find yourself in an awful position.

So the famine, whatever you're going through, I want to speak some life for a minute to parents that have been crying tears, pleading with God for that family member, or for that best friend, or for that son, or for that daughter.

And you're so scared because so much of their life now is out of your control.

But all you want, you would like, mom or dad, you would give up everything you possess simply to know that your kid was coming home and simply to know that their faith and security was found in Jesus Christ again.

You would give up everything for that without even thinking about it.

And now you're seeing so many of the consequences of their life and their uh uh decisions starting to affect them.

I just want to tell you, if you're seeing a famine in their life, look out because it probably means God is trying to create a revival in the heart of them.

Hold on, stay strong in that situation.

It's not God's judgment over your parenting or over their mistakes, it's God's kindness to say, I just want you home.

Goes on to say this: famine in the land.

So he went and he had to do this.

Hire himself out as a citizen of that country, to one of the citizens of that country who sent him to the fields to what?

Feed the pigs.

Now that doesn't sound like a big deal unless you understand ancient Judean culture.

Unless you've read the Torah.

I hate this part of the Torah so much, I once ripped that page out of my Bible where it said no bacon.

Bacon's not kosher.

I said, Yes, it is in my Bible.

And then the more I studied the Bible, I realized in the New Testament, Peter in the book of Acts, he had this vision, and God kind of cleared all meats for us to eat again, and then I glued that page back in the Bible and said, I'm sorry, God, it's just bacon's really important to me, and it's amazing.

But in this Jewish culture, there's nothing worse.

There's no more rock bottom than what's happened to him.

The kid who has it all, the rich parents.

The parents that every other kid dreamed and wished and were probably at some points jealous that they didn't get.

He got that and was so entitled because of those blessings that he took it and he squandered it on white riotous living, and now he finds himself at the ultimate Jewish rock bottom, which was he's working with the pigs and he can't even get the scraps that the pigs eat.

He's starving now, right?

He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but nobody gave him anything.

Nobody gave him anything, and I just want to ask you, some of us this weekend, have you ever been there?

I sure have, rock bottom.

But again, I'm telling you, this is when God absolutely does some of his best work, and we're about to see it.

See, here's what famines in our lives create, here's what rock bottom has the potential.

Potential to create if we recognize what God is up to is this.

He what?

He came to his senses.

And he said, How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death?

Why did I leave, in other words?

I had it so good.

And so he makes this grand plan.

He starts scheming, right?

He says, I'm going to set out and I'm going to go back to my father and I'm going to say to him, and then he prepares the walk of shame speech that he's going to give to his father.

Father, I have sinned against heaven, and I have sinned against you, which is absolutely true.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son, which we could all say, yeah, that's absolutely true.

And then he says this, I'll at least try for this.

I know I can't be a son again, but I'll see if he lets me do this.

He says, Make me like one of your hired servants.

And so he got up and he went to his father.

And you've got to ask yourself, I wonder how this is going to go for him.

Who knows how long this has been?

A few months?

Has this been years?

Probably a decent amount of time has passed by because he probably had a lot of inheritance to squander before it got bad.

Like, what's going to be the dad's response?

And before we read the father's response, it's very important that I remind you.

You can read about it in the book of Colossians, you can read about it in the book of Hebrews.

But one thing the Word of God teaches us is that Jesus is the exact representation of the image of God.

The Bible tells us God is a spirit.

I'm saying you really want to know what that unseen God, that we will all stand before him face to face sometime.

You want to know what he's truly like.

Just keep knowing Jesus.

Just keep following Jesus.

Just keep trusting Jesus when it makes sense and when it doesn't.

Keep leaning in, putting your hope, your dependence on Jesus, and more and more learn the teachings of Jesus.

Do your best, and we'll all fail, but to walk in the commands of Jesus.

And more and more that you do that, the more you will understand who God really is versus who sometimes we've taught that He is.

So he's about to come home.

Here's God, according to not me, Jesus.

Here's the response of the father.

Well, he was still a long way off.

Isn't that awesome?

Because I wouldn't have done that.

If I would have seen my rebellious son coming from a long way off, you know what my dad instincts are?

Get out of megaphone on the porch, be like, told you so.

Idiot.

Your old man knows a little bit more than you thought I did, don't you?

And I could have gone on forever and ever.

Well, he was still a long way off.

His father, we we serve the God who sees.

His father saw him.

Here's God's heart, according to Jesus.

Take it or leave it.

Believe it or not, he was filled with compassion.

Which blows my mind.

You know the hurt that kid must have put on his father?

The disrespect, the dishonor, the entitlement, the rebellion, the audacity, all of the things you would have thought that father would have had to work through to forgive him.

Well, he's a long way off.

The father sees him and his heart is instantly what?

Compassion.

And I love this the most.

That's why I highlighted it.

What's he do?

He runs to his son.

He threw his arms around him and he kissed him.

We serve the God who runs, y'all.

When you deserve, when I deserve the walk of shame.

You'd think good parenting was let him feel the way to this.

I want him to feel the way to this.

But no, no, no, no.

God, when he's a long way off, he runs.

Now let me tell you something really cool about that culture.

Changed my heart for God when I learned this one detail.

In the ancient Judean, Palestinian culture, no nobleman, which would have been the father in this story that Jesus is making up to teach people why he ate with tax collectors and sinners, because his love is just that absolutely awesome.

Nobody of any nobility would have ever been seen picking up their robe, showing any kind of skin, and running.

Rich, powerful people in that culture did not run anywhere.

Part of letting community know how rich and powerful you were is having as many people as possible running everywhere for you in your place.

You didn't run.

Do you know what they considered it?

I'll never forgot when I was reading theologians and historians about this.

They considered that one of the most undignified things you could do in culture was for an older nobleman to pick up his robe and run.

Jesus knows this.

Jesus understands that culture completely.

He's living in it.

It's brilliant that he brings this up in this short story because while we go, oh, that's beautiful, the God who runs.

Everybody listening that day would have been like, that's the last thing any father in his right mind should have done.

And Jesus is going, but I'm talking about God the Father.

I'm talking about someone different.

He doesn't play by the world's systems.

He doesn't play by the world's standards.

He doesn't move according to the world's instincts about what good parenting should look like.

Filled with compassion, he runs and becomes undignified.

Why?

Because he sees how much dignity that son of his has lost.

He can tell by his raggedy clothes, filled with pig scraps and how dirty that white robe he sent him off with, how dirty and how ripped up and how nasty it had gotten.

And he says, in compassion, I gotta go and I gotta hug him and I gotta fix that.

So he threw his arms around him and kissed him.

And I just wrote this in my notes and I thought it was worth putting it up here.

Please hear this this weekend, River Point and West End.

Jesus will become as undignified as necessary to redeem and restore dignity back to you and I.

That is the radical nature of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And you go, Chad, well, that's a pretty big statement, man.

Jesus, God in the flesh, is willing to become undignified.

Can I ask you what is possibly more undignified than the cross?

Roman crucifixion?

Where his beard was ripped out while he's carrying a cross on his way to a mountain to be unjustly pierced for our transgressions, and they're ripping his beard out, they're spitting on him, they're making jokes about him, and they're mocking him.

Is there anything being stripped down to almost naked after he had been beaten so much so that you could literally see his ribs?

Is there anything more undignified than that?

That, my friends, is how much God loves us.

He's like, I don't care how you get home, I don't care why you left home, I don't care what went on when you left home, I just want you home.

I want to restore to you the joy of being home.

I want to restore to you the joy of your salvation.

So look what the father does next.

This is awesome.

The son said to him, and he gets ready to give him the big speech Father, I have sinned against heaven and I've sinned against you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Father doesn't even respond to that.

Look what he says.

Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him.

Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

Do you know what the robe represented?

It represented a new covering.

That old, dirty, raggedy robe that life had just ripped apart and essentially mutilated and made gross and hard to look at.

He says, Bring me the whitest robe we got, my son's home, I want to put it on him.

The word of God in the New Testament defines righteousness as a robe.

We have been covered in a robe of God's righteousness.

All sin, all shame, covered.

Not punishment, not judgment, if you will receive him.

A covering of righteousness.

Then he puts a ring on the finger.

That denotes you're still in with the family.

You still get the family crest.

When people see you, they're gonna know I'm your father.

I'm proud to put my ring of my family name back on you.

In fact, it's all I ever wanted.

I was just waiting for you to take a step home so I could sprint out to you and carry you the rest of the way with joy.

Do you know what the sandals are?

In that ancient culture, this is unfortunate, but it's how it was back then.

Servants didn't get to wear shoes.

They wore bare feet and yet did most of the moving and running.

Do you know who got sandals in the house?

Sons and daughters.

This is the father going, you don't got to earn your sandals back.

This is how much I love you.

And this is how much I believe in the power of love changing you from your worst mistake to something new, to something holier, to something healthier.

You really want to love me and never leave again?

Let me love you so radically that you will now live a life accountable to how much I love you on the day that you least deserve it.

We love because he first loved us.

And then I love how it ends.

This is my favorite part because I'm a foodie.

The father said, Bring the fattened calf.

And I'm like, let's go, ribeye, let's go.

Let's have a feast and celebrate.

Why, God?

This is Jesus telling us the heart of God.

For this son of mine was dead.

And he's alive again.

He was lost, and now he's found.

And so they begin to what?

Just like heaven does.

When you come to the Father, when when you let him do what he does best, when you come to the God who runs.

I love that picture of him running again.

I picture the neighbors just scandalized by it, just judging him.

He's lost it.

I picture him, you know what they may have said?

There goes that man.

He's always doing things on that dumb kid's behalf.

And the father's going, yeah, but I can make something out of nothing.

I still make something out of nothing.

I create something out of nothing.

Whoa.

Sorry, you know, I'm not the singer here, but I want this song that has been a big catalyst of what sparked this revival of God's love for you and for I.

So they begin to celebrate.

One of my favorite stories ever told.

There's a sometimes where a pastor can just preach a whole lot better than you.

And so sometimes it's good to just sit for a minute and let another pastor do a better job than you could do it.

This is one of, I think, the best probably two minutes of preaching that I've ever heard.

It's by a pastor I deeply respect and I've learned so much from.

He's done it longer and much better than me.

He's a Scottish preacher named Alistair Bagg.

And he was given a message on the thief on the cross, and he was trying to convey the same thing I have through the prodigal son.

And I want you to hear what he has to say about the thief on the cross and Jesus.

Oh, the thief on the cross.

What an immense I can't I can't wait to find that fellow one day to ask him, how did that shake out for you?

Because you were you were you were you were cussing the guy out with your friend.

You'd never been in a Bible study, you never got baptized, you never you didn't know a thing about church membership, and and yet, and yet you made it.

You made it! How did you make it?

That's what the angel must have said, you know, like what are you doing here?

Well, I don't know.

What do you mean you don't know?

Well, I because I don't know.

Well, you know, we uh did you excuse me, let me get my supervisor thinking I'll get the supervisor ranger.

Wait, just a few questions for you.

First of all, uh are you are you uh are you are you clear on the doctrine of justification by faith?

The guy said I've never heard of it in my life.

And and what about let's just go to the doctrine of scripture immediately.

This guy's just staring.

And eventually in frustration, he says, on on what basis are you here?

And he said, the man on the middle cross said, I can come.

Now, now that's the that is the only answer.

That is the only answer.

That is the only answer.

We complicate it way too much.

How did you deserve it?

How'd you earn this?

How'd you get in here?

I have no clue.

Last guy I would have picked.

But the man on the middle cross said I could come.

That thief he's talking about was to the right of Jesus that day on Calvary.

And he was being hung up there for capital murder.

I mean, if something's gonna get you the death sentence, I guess, right, then and now I guess it's be capital murder.

And at first he's with the guy on the left of Jesus, they're cussing him like the rest of the people, mocking or joking, and then he has this just moment.

He, like the prodigal son, comes to a census.

And he looks at Jesus and says, Why why don't we fear you?

Like, we're up here because we deserve it.

This this man in the middle's done nothing to deserve this.

And then he just does nothing else but looks at Jesus and goes, Hey, would you consider letting me be a part of your kingdom?

That's it.

That's all he said.

The only that that audacious request from a murderer.

And Jesus gives him one sentence.

Truly, truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

No resume, no baptism, no church membership, no giving, no serving, no contribution, no skin in the game.

He just simply said, Whoa, I think this guy is different.

Wherever you're going, my my take, wherever you're going, can I go there with you?

And Jesus says, I tell you the truth today, not tomorrow, not after some purgatory, not after a lot of penance, not after a big, huge time out to make sure you never did.

No, today you're in.

You're back home.

If a capital murderer can get that response from Jesus, who talked you out of receiving daily, time and time again, the radical love of Jesus?

The radical love of God that is found in Christ Jesus.

I didn't read you my thoughts or my words.

I read you a story Jesus made up and tripled down on to try and show this world that loves to hate on each other, that loves to be so divisive and disunified, that loves to tear apart and eat our own, essentially, so that we think we can get ahead a little bit.

He came down and said, if you guys could get a bigger revelation and understanding of how much God loves you, you would start to see this planet start to heal.

You would start to see all the things we desire but don't want to pay the prices for actually start to come into fruition.

There is no other pathway.

River Point West End, please hear me when I say this.

This is the crux of the whole series.

There is no other pathway to living a life of full and radical love for yourself, your neighbor, your family, your kids, your friends, and yes, even your enemies.

There's no way to do that with any kind of real fruitfulness and honor to God than to be someone that constantly is willing to let the love of God that is so otherworldly and mind-bending, and I would say scandalous, let that wash over you over and over and over.

And listen to me, it is not a one-time thing.

It is not a one-time thing, and then on with your Christian life.

No, it's a constant God, would you restore to me the joy of my salvation?

God, I'm at rock bottom, and maybe you're not, and praise God, we don't want anyone at rock bottom, but come on, real life, right?

Maybe some of you just came out of one, maybe, maybe I hope not, but maybe some of you might be entering one based on some things the way life are going.

I just want you to know, I want to plead with you that if and when you have a God that will run to you, will become as undignified, will get the hate from the religious folk, will get yelled at and mocked and spit on from the religious folk that think that kind of love is just too scandalous.

It's love, but we gotta put a bunch of boundaries on it.

It's love, but we gotta put a bunch of parameters on it.

It's love, but you better do this.

It's Jesus, but plus something else.

And Jesus just came to say, look at the thief on the cross.

No, no, no.

The man on the middle cross said I could come, and I had nothing to offer paradise, and yet paradise offered me an invitation.

That is how much you and I are loved by God.

Please do not miss a week of this series if you can.

Because one weekend, to remind ourselves that this is not enough, I have been praying so hard that we would have a revival as a church of just being recipients, like the prodigal son, of more and more of the love of God in this next month.

And I believe the fruit of that will be a church body that goes into our communities, our families, our schools, our workplaces, and starts to love in a radical way that maybe we haven't in a while.

And when you start to love in any form or fashion, the way Jesus does, you know what starts to happen?

There's a return of the joy of your salvation.

The kingdom gets fun again.

It's not duty, it's not servanthood, it's friendship with God.

He says, I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.

God, restore that to anyone and everyone in the sound of my voice that needs it.

So at every campus, I just gonna end praying for all of us.

If anyone at any campus says, you know what, Chad, I want to go on that roller coaster ride with you.

I would love in the next month to just experience from God, because of his kindness, just experience a revival in my heart and mind and soul about how much God loves me.

I would love a renewed revelation of just how loved I am by God because I don't know if I deserve it or not.

Doesn't matter.

I desperately need it.

If that's you, would you just put your hand up right now?

Come on, we're in church, we can tell the truth.

My hands up, I put both hands up.

That's me.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I cannot see any reason God would not want to answer a prayer like that.

And so now, Lord, on our way out this weekend, as we start another week, as we jump back into the hustle and bustle of everything, God, I pray that you would just fill us with joy of your salvation.

Fill us with a renewed sense of how good you are.

God, I pray that you would heal hearts in this month because they got a renewed passion and understanding that you are for them, you're not against them.

That every day they breathe and get up, there's hope to do another day and to do it with fullness, to do it with zest and vitality and power, not because uh uh we're all amazing all the time, but because you are amazing all the time.

To the God that runs, we're asking in this next month that you would run to us and meet us exactly where we are at, so then we can reciprocate that back to the rest of this world that you've given to us.

God, we ask this and we believe for it, and we all pray it in the mighty saving name of Jesus.

And everybody said, Amen.

You guys are so awesome.

Have such an amazing week.