Prodigal: Older Brother | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

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So good to see you guys.

If we haven't met, my name is Nassim.

I'm our discipleship pastor here on staff.

It is really exciting to dive into God's word with you.

And this morning, we are in part three of a sermon series we're doing called Prodigal.

We're going through Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son.

And if you weren't here last week, I really want to encourage you to go listen to Roland's sermon, our youth pastor, preached a powerful sermon on the younger son.

And today I'm gonna be preaching out of Luke 15, but through the lens of a different character in the story, through the lens of the older brother.

And I want to give you a little bit of a short recap just to give us some context.

Maybe you forgot last week, maybe you weren't here to listen to it.

Let me give you some context of the story in which we find ourselves in.

This is a story in the Bible where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, to the Jewish religious leaders, and he's talking to them in hopes that they would have ears to listen to what he has to say.

And so I hope that we here today too have ears to listen to what God wants to say to us.

In this story, we have three main characters.

We have a father and his two sons, older son, younger son.

And last week, I kind of I'm a TV nerd, so I'm kind of gonna do like a little thing of like previously on, you know, like before the episode starts.

So previously on, what you might have missed last week is the younger son in the story decides that he wants to go out and rebel, live his best life, if you will, as the kids are saying these days, and basically walk away from the father.

He basically wishes his father dead.

He asks for his inheritance before the father has passed, and just says peace out to the family, and runs away.

And spoiler alert, he does not live his best life, right?

We know that.

He comes back full of shame and has squandered all his money and basically comes back asking for the father's forgiveness.

And as we learned last week, this powerful way that we ended the sermon last week, the father, instead of being angry, instead of shaming his son, he welcomes him home with open arms, right?

He rejoices and he wants to throw a party in his honor to celebrate his lost son being found and coming home.

So that was previously on.

Now it's like next episode.

Right in the middle of all that cliffhanger, I want to introduce you to the older brother.

So read with me.

We're in Luke 15, verse 25.

Luke 15:25

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.

When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.

And so he called to one of the servants and asked him what was going on.

Your father's come home, he replied.

You're sorry, your brother's come home, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.

This is a very big deal for that context.

And the older brother became angry and refused to go in.

So his father went out and pleaded with him.

But he answered his father, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and I've never disobeyed your orders.

Yet you never even gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

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

My son, the 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 now he's found.

Will you pray with me?

Jesus, thank you, God, so much for your word, that is word of life.

Your word is our daily bread.

And God, we come to you, Lord, seeking to listen and to learn from your word.

And Holy Spirit, I just pray that we would have eyes and ears attuned to you.

Lord, that I would be so attuned to you, God, that you would just use me as an empty vessel that you'd speak through Spirit.

We're here to receive.

Amen.

Amen.

So I'm wondering, are any of you older siblings here in the house?

So you raise your hand.

Older siblings?

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

I love Roland and I want to start our sermons this way because we're both older siblings.

Um I'm the big sister.

I have a younger brother who is four years younger than me.

And I'd like to say that growing up, the dynamic was just hard, right?

The dynamic was hard.

I think just being older sister, younger brother, four years, four and a half years, is just enough time where like you just kind of get on each other's nerves, right?

Anyone else?

Yeah, that's just what it was.

Um, I have a photo of us at our cuteness prime that I want to show you.

I know.

I liked for you to just look at like my subtle side eye, kind of glancing over at his cake.

I'm thinking my parents probably just got me a cake as like a supplemental, yeah, you can get attention too, but it was probably like his birthday, I think.

But I'm like, is my cake as good as his?

Right?

Am I still gonna get attention?

Just glancing over, look how cute he is.

Um, and then this is us today.

This is us today.

This was at Thanksgiving a few months ago.

I love my brother so much.

Um, we've only grown closer as time has gone by, so love him.

Being the psychology enthusiast that I am, as I've grown older, I've been really fascinated with tools that help us understand how we relate to the world.

Things like, you know, family of origin or your sibling birth order, maybe plotting your genogram, any Pizza Gazero fans in the house.

Just love to nerd out on that.

Um, and how these dynamics can really affect us.

You know, just as much as parenting can affect us, having or not having a sibling can really affect how you grow up.

This um psychologist I follow says, I think of the sibling relationship like this natural laboratory for learning how to get along with people.

Isn't that so good?

So true.

And what's interesting is there are actual studies that psychologists and sociologists have done to study different traits in siblings and their dynamics.

And this one was done that I found really fascinating that I want to share with you.

It was done on 320 undergraduate engineering students in India, both male and female, first year to fourth year.

And they were studying the trait of perfectionism.

And they categorized perfectionism under two umbrellas, what they called positive perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism, or negative.

Positive perfectionism was classified with traits like leadership, intellectual ability, social connectedness, and achievement motivation.

I'm gonna hold off on defining the negative till I share the results with you.

So, what the study found was that by a large part in families of two or more children, the older sibling had a way higher tendency towards the maladaptive perfectionist traits.

What does that look like?

For those siblings, their parental influences were stronger when it came to decision making, demands of the family, and display of conscientiousness.

They experienced things like higher personal and societal demands that sometimes led to a negative emotional state.

And this is not to say that they didn't experience the positive traits, they they had those, but in fact, just between older and younger, the older siblings had a much higher um tendency towards the maladaptive.

So I don't know about you guys, I read that as a firstborn, especially Iranian American.

I felt very seen by that.

Anyone else?

Just kind of feeling seen?

Yeah, I think I inhibit both of those.

Um, if you if you know me, you would easily and very quickly know that my parents are the most important people in my life.

Um, to know them is to love them.

Can I get an amen?

You know them.

Yep.

They're here today.

Um, mom and dad, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.

We're just gonna go there a little bit about how I grew up and my dynamic with my brother.

Um, you know, I was, you guys, your typical rule-following older sister, like responsible.

In fact, I have this memory of do you remember getting progress reports in elementary and middle school?

The teacher would write your, you know, the comments on the side.

The consistent feedback in my comments every year, year after year for my teachers was Nassim is extremely conscientious.

And that's not a word that we hear often often today.

So that means the quality of wishing to do one's work well and thoroughly.

That was me, through and through.

My brother, on the other hand, was a class clown, free spirit, you know, kind of just like Street Smart, anything goes.

I remember in high school, my brother took a lot of AP film classes.

So on the weekends, he'd drive with his friends to San Francisco and like film movies, just do, you know, no curfew, come home whenever you want, just yeah, living his best life.

Um, meanwhile, four years earlier when I was in high school, it's funny because two of my youth group friends are here today, when we were in youth group, we'd go to church after after lunch and sorry, we'd go to lunch after church on Sundays.

And the common thing that my friends will even make fun of me to this day is how long do you think it'll take before NASA's parents call her to come home and study?

That was what time do you think that she'll get called home to go home and study?

And so I just say that kind of tongue in cheek.

So maybe you find yourself either in my story or my brothers, whether you're oldest, youngest, only child, or middle, in today's message, I want us to look at arguably one of the most famous sibling dynamics of all time, in that of the older brother and the younger brother.

I don't know about you guys, we don't hear a lot of sermons about the older brother, right?

And I personally deeply connect with the older brother because I'm probably what you'd call a recovering older brother.

And in this sermon, I hope to illustrate and unpack the power of this dynamic through the medium of a painting.

It's an oil painting that you might be familiar with.

It is Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son.

Let's take a look at it.

Author, priest, and theologian Henry Nowin spent hours at the Ermitage Museum in Russia with this painting.

I don't know about you guys.

I don't I can't imagine spending probably more than 15, 20 minutes with one piece of art, but he spent days and days with this piece of art, which that's really cool.

And so much so, he was so fascinated that he wrote a book on the painting and his insights.

It's called The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Side note, highly recommend that as a supplemental reading if you want to nerd out.

Wonderful book.

I will be quoting much of Henry Nowan in today's sermon.

Henry Nowan was deeply moved by the older brother in this painting.

And I want to read to you, he says of his experience with this painting, quote, I recall gazing at him, the older brother, for long periods and wondering what was going on in this man's mind and heart.

He is without a doubt the main observer of the younger son's homecoming.

I quickly realized the complexity of the reunion, the main observer watching the father embracing his son that appears very withdrawn.

He looks at the father, but not with joy.

He doesn't reach out, nor does he smile or express welcome.

He simply stands there at the side.

Pretty accurate, right?

I want you to look at the painting now.

What do you see?

Maybe jot it down or just kind of make a mental note.

What's your main observation?

I I know for me, as I was looking at this, the first thing that stuck out to me was the space.

The darkness and the space between the older son and his family.

And Nallan observes this as well, and he says, It's true that the return is the central point of the painting.

However, it's not situated at the physical center of the canvas, right?

It's to the left side.

While the tall older brother dominates the right.

There's a large open space separating older son and father.

It's a space that creates attention, asking for resolution.

Oof, right?

It's good.

So I want us to let's look at scripture.

You have your Bible open it up with me.

If you want to look at the screen, look at your notes, I want us to unpack a little bit of Luke chapter 15 together.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Let me give you a recap.

We start with meanwhile, the older son was in the field, right?

So he's working, he's slaving away, he's doing his thing, and he hears music.

He gets closer to the house, he hears like a party kind of going on.

And he's like, What's happening?

What's going on?

He finds out, oh my gosh, my brother's back.

And instead of being excited, instead of any kind of like, oh my gosh, he's back, he becomes angry, wants nothing to do with the party or the celebration.

But in fact, he tells his dad, Dad, what is going on, right?

Like, I've been sleeping for you all these years.

What is happening?

What are you doing?

Why are we throwing him a party?

He's in the wrong.

This son of yours who squandered your property.

So there's a bit of a stark contrast between what we left off with last Sunday, right, and today.

Last Sunday, this epic reunion, this like son and father being reunited, this joy.

And then here we meet older brother, confused, angry, frustrated.

Now, before we immediately go to blame him, you might be reading this and thinking, why is he so negative, right?

Like your brother's back.

Let's be excited.

Now, I want you for a moment to put yourselves in his shoes.

I would like to posit that he is in fact quite justified in his initial emotion.

See, the older brother stayed with his dad.

While the younger brother said, peace out and left, he committed.

He stayed, right?

I can imagine during that time he displayed a lot of loyalty to his dad, especially a dad who was probably dealing with a lot of grief that his son had just run away, right?

I can imagine that his workload doubled.

He was probably responsible for even more than before.

He is conscientious, he is a good worker, he's taking care of things.

I'm sure he had to display a lot of leadership in that season, right?

So from the outside, these are really commendable qualities.

In fact, I read that and I'm like, I feel for him, right?

From the outside, it's like the sacrificial, committed love that we're observing.

But we we know that our exterior actions don't always accurately affect what's happening inside, right?

To put more simply, right actions don't always equal right heart.

I want to say that again.

Right actions don't always equal right heart.

I want us to look at Luke 15 one more time, and I want to give you three observations about his heart.

If we press in a little bit deeper, what do we see about his heart?

Notice the first the son's language is extremely distant and insulting, both to his dad and his brother.

The first thing I notice, he says, this son of yours, right?

He doesn't say my brother.

He says, Oh, this son of yours.

To me, I'm like, I don't want anything to do with you.

That's your problem, right?

It's this son of yours.

It's not my brother, no association.

So it's distant, right?

I don't have anything to do with my brother.

And then second, notice the word look.

The word look in the Greek here, and remember, this is a Palestinian Middle Eastern culture.

The way that he's saying this is a very aggressive form of kind of just being like, look you, in a very disrespectful way.

Um, I'm a native Farsi speaker, and if you here today maybe speak a different language, we in our language have two different forms for the pronoun you.

And I want to just give you a little bit of a little bit of a Farsi lesson here.

The pronoun you that in Farsi says to is familiar.

That's how I would talk to a friend or a peer.

It's extremely familiar.

The pronoun shuma is you that you would reserve for a parent or an elder or someone in authority.

In this case, it's literally like the son saying to his dad.

I can't imagine what would happen if I would say to to my dad, okay?

You don't do that.

It's extremely disrespectful.

So the language is distant and insulting.

The second is there seems to be this sense of entitlement over what he is owed.

Notice that he says, All these years I've been slaving for you.

That word slave is actually slave.

Can you imagine?

Like it's like dad, like, yeah, I'm I don't delight in what I'm doing, I'm slaving away for you.

It's almost like doing something in order to get something in return, right?

All this time I've worked so hard for you, never gave me a party.

Like I deserve XYZ.

And many times at the root of our entitlement, it's always pride.

Whether we want to admit it or not, there's a pride that is festering and brewing.

And then finally, there's resentment and bitterness that is growing up in him.

The text says he became angry and refused to go into the celebration.

It's kind of like this overarching umbrella of like, it's not fair, right?

I read that, I'm just like, yeah, it's just like he's like, it's not fair.

Tim Keller, in his phenomenal book, Prodigal God, another excellent recommended resource for you to read, he coins the term elder brother lostness.

Elder brother lostness, he defines it this way growing angry, bitter, or cynical towards God when life doesn't go the way you think it should, because you're being good or keeping the rules.

Anyone else kind of?

Yeah?

This outlook that says life needs to go well because I'm being good.

He says it's a moral observance that is results-oriented.

A moral observance that is results-oriented.

And friends, birth order or not, we all have elder brother syndrome in us.

We all have elder brother lostness trying to peek through.

And I'm curious, have you ever felt this way?

You sitting here right now, you watching at home?

This thought of like, God, I'm reading my Bible every day.

I'm trying to forgive people, I'm serving at awakening church, right?

I'm tithing, I'm doing all the things.

God, why aren't you answering my prayer?

Right?

Like, God, why did this relationship go sour?

God, why did my family get this diagnosis?

Why have I not gotten that job I wanted?

Why did this circumstance happen?

Right?

The list goes on, the questions go on.

Very valid questions.

However, I think the overarching question that I want us to center on and focus today, the question I hope you take away and that you meditate on, is simply this.

Why do you love God?

Why do you love God the Father?

Why do you love Jesus?

Is it because of what he can give us?

Is it because of what we want him to give us?

Or is it because of who he is?

I put it another way, do we love God to just get things, or do we love God to get God?

Like to get the person, right, to know him?

See, in act one of this parable, the bad son, if you will, the lost son, he was found.

But now we're seeing in act two of this parable, the good son that was home, he's actually the one who's lost, right?

The elder brother lostness.

Pastor Ian Simpkin says the older brother in this story shows us something profound.

You can be in the father's home and still be distancing yourself from the father's heart.

Like, oof, yeah, hit me.

I can think of many instances in my own life where I have experienced elder brother lostness.

And as a leader, I want to model openness and vulnerability and kind of go first and share with you how the Lord has really freed me from my lostness.

And I was actually kind of secretly excited when I was assigned this one because I wanted to preach on older brother because I deeply resonate.

I mentioned being a recovering older brother.

I really want to share my story with you in this context.

I mentioned earlier my trajectory growing up, this whole like nasty misconscientious, that narrative, right?

That became this internal script that I was really proud of.

I found a lot of pride in that.

I felt very seen by teachers, by parents, by friends, friends as parents.

And that in itself isn't bad.

Um, but but hang with me.

As I entered high school, for me, the goal, what I thought was the most important thing in high school was study hard, get into a good college, right?

Maybe, maybe that was for you two.

That was like the main goal.

And I worked so hard.

And I think just being from the Bay, my goal was to go to a UC school.

So the top two were UC Berkeley and UC LA.

I was like, that's what I'm doing.

That's what the plan is.

I graduated high school with a 4.3 GPA, and I didn't get into either school.

And I was wrecked.

I was absolutely floored.

And I was like, God, what?

I remember my exact lingo, my senior year was, I'm settling for UC Davis.

Which no, and that's so entitled because our valedictorian went to UC Davis.

It's a wonderful school, but in my pride and in my entitlement, that's kind of what my heart posture was.

Even after high school, when I went to college, I graduated college in three years, and I kind of was like, you know, being from the Bay, being in the Bay, I figured, okay, what's next is I'm gonna come back to the Bay and work for like a Google, Apple, Facebook.

That's just what success felt like, right?

And maybe many of you sitting here today, maybe that's been your life trajectory too.

I kind of felt like I've worked this hard, here's the path my life needs to go down, here's what I deserve, right?

So I get home, graduate college early, I'm like 21, 22, and all these job interviews, no job offers, nothing.

Crickets.

And as I'm just sitting with this, I'm having this like internal complex start to brew where I'm like, God, like the formula isn't working, right?

I did all the right things, I felt so prepared, I worked so hard, like all of my identity's in this.

Like, why isn't this working?

And then on top of that, my faith came into play, and I started thinking, God, I'm a good Christian.

Whatever that means, right?

I'm a good Christian, I'm going to church every Sunday, my parents are pastors, I'm serving, da-da-da-da.

And then I started to unfortunately really fall into bitterness, fall into a lot of bitterness and resentment towards people around me, even my friends that I've really had to repent of.

I started thinking things like, you know, so-and-so got this amazing job out of college.

She's making bank, and she's out partying at the clubs every weekend.

She's sleeping with her boyfriend.

And she's at church on Sundays, like, what a hypocrite, right?

Have you been there?

So disgusting.

But I'm I'm I'm the right one, right?

I'm doing all the right things.

I'm not sinful.

And in all that, there's this like a major legalism brewing, this bitterness.

I started comparing my faith and my journey to other people.

And then I started just stewing over this complex of like, God, like, why do I even love you, right?

Why do I obey you?

You know, about a year.

Into this, it's interesting.

A group of my friends and I at church, we started a book club, and ironically, the book was Prodigal God by Tim Keller.

And in that, I felt so just like on this journey with the Lord, finding myself and my elder brother lostness.

And I look back now, I'm like, that was not ironic at all.

That was all Holy Spirit being like, I'm gonna meet you in this space, right?

And I started just talking to God about this.

Like, God, like, why do I love you?

Why do I obey you?

It's like kind of in the worst end of the spectrum.

It's like you can fall down this like prosperity gospel theology, right?

Which is so not the truth or illegalism, or in the worst case, full-on deconstruction of your faith, right?

Because you're like, who is God, right?

Right?

What can I actually even expect of God?

I felt so lost, so confused, so rattled.

Henry Nowan says it beautifully, more beautiful than I ever could.

I want to read you part of this from his book.

He says, the more that I reflect on the elder son in me, the more I realize how deeply rooted this form of lostness really is.

How hard it is to return home from there.

Returning home from a lustful escapade seems so much easier than returning home from a cold anger that has rooted itself in the deepest corners of my being.

Go to the next slide.

When I want to act out of my most generous self, I get caught in anger or resentment.

Just as I want to be most selfless, I find myself obsessed with being loved.

Just when I think I'm capable of overcoming my temptations, I feel envy towards those who give in to theirs.

It seems that wherever my virtuous self is, there's also a resentful complainer.

Mic drop, right?

Like I'm done.

So, friends, in this story, the older brother is trapped.

He's trapped by his bitterness, by his resentment, the same way I was trapped, the same way maybe maybe you are sitting here today, maybe you are.

So, what must we do?

Jesus, our Lord and Savior, longs for us who are lost to be found.

Whether you're lost in the younger brother's sense, as we cited last week or today as the older brother, he longs for us to return home.

I want you to look at the painting again.

And as you look at it, I wonder, what would it take for the older son to just walk his way over to the father and just allow himself to be embraced?

To allow himself to just be embraced by the father and like let that be enough, right?

That embrace.

I want to give us two disciplines of our heart to help us with this, to help us with breaking free from older brother lostness.

And I want to pause for a moment and just explain what I mean by discipline.

I'm not here to give you a formula.

Just mention formulas don't work in our walk with God, right?

It's not about a formula, it's so much deeper than that.

I'm not here to give you a to-do list or an XYZ checklist.

A discipline is a posture I want to invite you into, a way of creating space to hear from God because He wants to speak to you and I.

Amen?

He wants to speak to you and I, but we have to make space.

And so the good news of the gospel, friends, is we don't have to earn our way to get God to love us.

Thank God.

There's no earning required.

He loved us first.

However, apart from earning, there's a little bit of an effort that we put into our relationship with God, right?

You and I are apprentices of Jesus.

That means we're students of Jesus, so we put effort into that relationship.

The same way you put effort into a marriage, into a friendship, into being a parent, we put an effort into that relationship.

And so I want to just give us two of those disciplines, two of these efforts we can put into our walk with God to recover from our lostness.

And the first is delight.

Delight.

Maybe not what you were thinking, right?

The older brother was obeying to get his inheritance.

It was results-based obedience.

Right?

There was joylessness, there was just dutifulness in what he was doing.

All these years I've been slaving for you.

There was no delight in even getting to know his father.

And so I think we need to flip the script and kind of start to act out of this delight-based obedience.

I know that's not scholarly, it's not Tim Keller, but it's a Nassim Khalili term.

So let's hang with it, right?

Delight-based obedience.

I think it, I think it goes.

What do I mean by delight-based obedience?

I want us to look at scripture.

Psalm 1, verse 2.

Psalms 1:2

Psalm 1 is one of my favorite Psalms in the Bible.

It says, Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, who meditates on the law day and night.

Now I want to normalize something as we read that.

We might not always desire to be in God's Word 24-7, right?

Just me, I'm sitting here as a pastor telling you that.

That's not me.

There's no shame here.

Yep, that's normal.

Let's normalize that.

There's no shame.

But but how can we get there, right?

How can we get there?

That's like something we like should be curious about.

Pastor and author, Chris and I taught on these verses in a recent sermon that really moved me, that really challenged me.

And he was saying, what if there's something cyclical about those two actions that's not necessarily linear in our walk with God?

Almost like the more we discipline ourselves to meditate on God's word, the more then we start to delight in it.

The more then we start to desire it.

And then in return, the more we desire it, the more we delight in it, the more you crave it, right?

The more you want to be in it.

It's this cyclical thing.

And so, friends, a life with God should yield this kind of delight.

I don't know about you guys.

I think so often, I was just telling our proteges this yesterday, our retreat.

I think that we have this two-dimensional view of what the good life is.

This social media grid of Instagram, what is like success.

And if anything goes wrong in our lives or doesn't pan out the way we think or want, we're immediately crushed, right?

And I think God is like, let me give you a 3D view.

Let me crack open the dusty window and give you a 3D view of the life that you can have in me that is flourishing.

The life that is just like, who is God?

Simply, who is God, right?

The more you delight in God's word, the more you can cling to promises of who he is.

Gosh, I think even in my own life, just off the top of my head right now, I'm like, God, you bottle all my tears.

Every tear I've ever cried in the quiet place, you not one tear has gone unseen.

He bottles it.

He is my sustainer.

God is my comforter.

God restores me.

God goes before me and behind me.

Those are just things that have been true to my life.

Today I wonder, what is that for you?

Those are promises that I'm clinging to.

I crave to delight in the Lord as I get to know those things about God, right?

I just want to linger in his presence because of who he is.

I think about the worship song, nothing else.

Maybe you're familiar with it.

We sing it a lot at Awakening.

I want to read these words.

Should I sing them over you?

Just kidding.

I'm gonna read them.

Just making sure you're still awake.

I'm sorry when I forgot that you're enough.

I'm caught up in your presence.

I just want to sit here at your feet.

I never want to leave.

I'm not here for blessings.

Jesus, you don't owe me anything.

And this, more than anything that you can do, I just want you.

Gosh, may that be true of us, right?

Delight.

Crave Him.

Linger with Him.

It is so freeing for our lostness.

And then the second way that we can train our hearts to break free from that lostness is trust.

Church, it's trust.

Notice that the first thing the Father replies with, son, you're with me always.

You're with me always.

Gosh, I love that the first thing the dad tells him is like he reassures him of his identity.

First thing he says, he reassures him of his standing.

Right?

In like today's lingo, it's like, I got you, right?

I got you.

You belong with me.

I think about the older brother standing at the side, and I wonder, like, did part of him want to be invited in?

Right?

Did part of him like want to be wanted?

Or like, God, Dad, do you care if I come in too?

And like, gosh, as I was praying, I was like, someone here needs to know that.

Like, you are wanted.

You are wanted by your father.

You are loved by your father.

You are not less loved for anything that you've done or haven't done.

He wants to embrace both sons, both daughters.

Amen.

That's who he is.

And friends, we have to come to a place of trusting that God wants us, trusting that God loves us.

He says, Let me embrace you.

And the more that we trust his love, I think about all the ways we white knuckle, right?

All the things that we're holding so tightly, the more that we trust God, the more that our grip slowly opens up, right?

Our lack of control, our entitlement, our doubts of how things are gonna turn out.

And I say that, and I say that as like a nugget to give you, but I want to just make sure I say this.

That takes effort.

It's a discipline.

It takes daily resolve, sometimes hourly, right?

Literally, I feel like it's sometimes hourly.

Daily resolve, hourly resolve of God.

I want to trust you.

I want to lean into you.

It reminds me of Psalm 32, 1.

Steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

You know, I mentioned my own story earlier, and I want to circle back to it.

My story is still being written, obviously, but as I look back on my 20s, there's so many layers, and I mentioned that part of my story to you.

And it's so interesting that now, like 10 years later, I look back and I just smile in retrospect at the story that God was writing, and I see that despite my limited vantage point of like finding identity and worth in like what am I doing?

Write this overachieving, find identity in this, God was writing such a different, deeper story of like that led to like finding a new church home here, right?

Finding a job, finding a career path, a calling.

Of God, like, oh no, no, you're called to be a pastor.

You're a shepherd.

This is your calling, right?

This is your ministry that dramatically has changed my entire life.

And so whether you're sitting here today in any sort of doubt or uncertainty, I just want to tell you, you can trust that in the uncertainty, God is working it out for your good.

Amen.

Gosh, he's working so much deeper into the intricacies of the threads of our lives than we even have any idea.

So trust him.

And the final thing the father tells the son, he says, All I have is yours.

All I have is yours.

It's like, hey, you had me the whole time.

Was I not enough?

You had me the whole time.

And friends, I think that that's something we need to lean into is we trust God, just thinking him that he is our source of life, right?

Gosh, life, the older I get, I feel like the more I'm just like, why is life so hard?

Right?

Like there's people going through there's so much hardship we walk in.

And so I know it sounds kind of cliche, but the more I'm just basking in like every single moment is a gift.

Every single moment with him, it is a gift to lean into, to just bask in, to trust him.

You know, I mentioned that psalm, steadfast love surrounds those who trust him.

Another version of your Bible, a translation, might say unfailing love or faithful love.

He's faithful to you.

That's something I felt so convicted about this last week is like, gosh, we think we're so committed to God, he's way more committed to you than you are to him.

He's way more committed to us than we are to him.

He wants you, he wants to embrace you.

And so, friends, as we practice delight and we practice trust, that begins to free us.

It begins to step into the love of the Father.

Even in the moments where our lostness creeps in, we're human, it's gonna happen, it still happens for me.

When that legalism or the judginess or the bitterness, whatever that will creep in, we begin to be freed, right?

Because creating these spaces becomes part of our discipleship.

It's part of my journey walking with him.

Amen.

And so the good news, friends, is thanks to Jesus Christ, thanks to his death and his resurrection, we have a father that longs for us to be found and wants to embrace you and I.

You know, the interesting thing is the story ends on a cliffhanger.

We don't know if the brother walks into the party.

And I love that it ends that way because in a way Jesus is telling this to the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders, in a way of inviting them in, right?

Remember how legalistic they were?

It's like, will you step into the feast of the father?

The same way that I think that's an invitation for you and I today.

Will we step into his love?

I've read this passage so many times growing up, and verse 28 popped out at me as I was preparing.

Oh my God, I never realized this.

It says, the father came out of the party and pleads or begs his son to come in.

Isn't that interesting?

The same way that the father rushes to the younger son to run after him, he runs out of the party and begs the son to come in after all the insults, after all the distance, after all the disrespect, it's like this tender, compassionate love.

It's like, no, I want you here.

You belong with me.

So will you step into that love?

Will you believe that that's enough?

And so as we step into this time of worship, I want to end this sermon today with a challenge to our church.

It's a bold one, and I want to invite you into this.

See, church, you might be sitting here today and you totally relate to my story, maybe.

You see that in yourself, maybe the younger.

We cannot step into disciplines like delighting and adoring our Father and trusting him until we come from a place of confession, first and foremost.

Confession is saying, I want to change ways.

I don't want to be like I was before, right?

I want to confess how I was and I want to make it kind of like a turn.

I want to repent.

And so I think that there's power, us doing that as a church together.

And so I'm gonna lead by example.

I want to just pray over us.

Will you get up with me and get on your knees in a posture of surrender?

If you feel convicted, will you just stand up and get on your knees if you're able and close your eyes?

And if you can't, no worries.

Maybe just open, open your hands.

Take a breath.

When we get on our knees, this is kind of like full surrender.

We're saying, God, I'm yours.

I'm your son, I'm your daughter.

I'm here to just have a moment with you.

Amidst the busy, amidst all the things.

I'm here to just meet with you.

So, God, we adore you.

God, we delight in your presence.

And God, as a church, as individuals, as your sons and daughters, we confess.

And God, we ask that you would forgive us if we're loving you for wrong reasons.

God, we confess our entitlement.

Forgive us for thinking there's a formula to get things from you.

Forgive us for being two-dimensional when you want us to have this 3D view of who you are as our good father.

And God, we want to confess, Lord, if we've been an older brother who's hurt a younger brother, whether it's in the church or not in the church, I want you to think about maybe the last time that you said, look you, to someone either under your breath or actually audibly.

Maybe the person you saw on social media and you're like, gosh, those people, right?

We can be so judgy.

We can be so stuck in our ways, and I feel like God is just like, let me, let me just leave that to me, you know?

Just love.

So, God, we confess if we've been too legalistic about who's in, who's out.

Forgive us for being so limited in our vantage point of view.

We're not here for blessings, Jesus.

You don't owe us anything.

Jesus, thanks to your death and resurrection, our salvation is the only thing we need.

You've given us everything in Jesus.

We just say thank you for that.

And more than anything that you can do, God, we just want you.

I pray, God, finally, as we're on our knees, as we worship right now, I just pray over all my brothers and sisters that they would experience simply and deeply the Father's love, your love over them, saying, I am with you always.

Everything I have is yours.

And I just pray that there would be such a delight and a trust in that truth as we worship.

So, church, you can stay on your knees if you want.

You can get up, you can sit down.

We're just gonna continue and worship our Father as we've made space to encounter him.

We hope you were blessed by this message.

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