Prodigal: Younger Brother | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

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

Thanks for tuning in.

Hey, we're thrilled that you're here joining us today.

Like Dave said, if you missed last week, we are starting this new series called Prodigal.

And the reason why we're doing this is at the beginning of the year, we set out as a church to take one whole year to just focus on one thing.

And that's what is it to what does it look like to apprentice under Jesus for one full calendar year?

And right, what a grand thing for a church to think of.

But the way that we want to do that is we want to look at Jesus' teachings, his life, and see what does it look like to live like the people we were created, we were made to be.

And the way that we'll be doing that in this series is we'll be looking at one of Jesus' most popular, if not the most popular, uh parable that he's taught called the Prodigal Son.

And we'll be looking at it four weeks, four different ways.

And last week, what Ryan did was he kind of gave us some context to the story.

Uh he shared with us like a pattern to see.

He he told us like why he's telling uh these parables to begin with.

Um but today what we're gonna do is we're gonna be looking at this story one more time uh from the vantage point or more focused on the younger brother in the story.

Uh do we have any younger siblings in the house?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

You were different from the last service.

They were proud.

They said something.

You guys are like the shy younger siblings, like right here.

They told me to be quiet, so um hey, well, I love that we have some younger siblings here because and that I get to be the one that gets to share from the vantage point of the younger brother, because although I'm the oldest of two, uh, I actually have always thought that I've had younger brother tendencies my whole life.

Yeah, yeah.

If you if you if you if you know me, then you know that's true.

If you're surprised, that's very kind of you.

Um but what what do I mean by that?

Let me explain.

Uh we've all heard the stereotypes, right?

We we've all been fed uh the caricature of what like a younger sibling is typically like.

They're they're fun loving, they're loud, they're sometimes just unhinged, uh they they get away with everything, right?

Um, and they're not really good at listening.

They're not really good at listening.

And as I say all that, remember, I'm just telling you what I've been told, what I've seen in the movies, and I know there's exceptions to the rule.

We had all the younger siblings who were just really quiet about it.

Like, there you go.

Um, and and also I think I'm an exception to the rule.

Um, let me show you.

Uh, I've got some pictures that I wanted to kind of, I guess, prove or illustrate my younger brotherness.

Um, like I said, I'm the oldest of two, and that person on the left is my younger sister, Carolyn.

And if you like our age difference, yeah, we had the same haircut, but I got one before this, uh, before this picture at least.

Catches at the right time of the year, we had the same haircut.

Um, but like my sister, she's about, if you round up, like two years younger than me.

And a few years before, or a couple years before this picture was taken, the year is like 2000.

And wow, does that make you feel old?

The year is like 2000, and we had just moved to Ventura, and my parents and their two kids are like in a new place, like, got these kids, they need to be doing something.

Like, we need to help this kid like make some friends.

He doesn't know how to do that on his own.

And he's and they came up with this grand idea.

We're gonna sign them up for basketball.

And me having this defiant, not wanting to listen, younger brother spirit in me.

I said, absolutely not.

I will not play basketball, mother.

Even though she said, like, you're you would love it, it'll be great.

I didn't believe her.

I said, I'd rather be playing Game Boy Color.

Pokemon is like the cool thing right now, mom.

I'm not gonna play basketball.

Um, so I didn't listen to her when she said that I would have loved basketball.

And um, they gave in to my wishes and they ended up signing up just my sister uh to play basketball uh while she was in first grade.

And it was pretty much game over from there because this girl in first grade, um, she barely four feet tall, uh, goes into this youth league and just wrecks it.

She's like the star of the show.

Um she's like so good as a first grader in basketball that like parents would stay late after their kids were done playing basketball to watch my sister play.

And as like as the like mythology of Carolyn Jimenez like grew in Ventura County, like later on in the season, like parents would they would come early before their kids' games to watch my sister play.

And it was just funny, right, to see like this little Filipino girl with like the ball half her size dominate the sport that she was in.

Uh and if it's the pick, see the ball's half her size, there's proof.

Um yeah, and then like I just I was there to watch it because I wasn't playing basketball.

And she was so good that there was this coach, this is like the tipping point for me.

She was so good that there was this coach who coached a club basketball team that came to a couple of her games and made it a point to come out just so he could recruit her to play travel basketball.

And that's where I just was like, are you serious?

Are you kidding me?

And all of a sudden, there I stood watching my sister be like the Kobe Bryant of Ventura County, and me be the quote unquote older brother, just watching it all happen in front of me.

And all of a sudden, I just wanted to be like her.

And the roles, like I said, younger brother tendencies to me, the roles were reversed.

And there I stood at like eight years old, watching my little sister, and all I had in my mind was one day when I grow up, I want to be like Carolyn.

Long story short, uh, I realized that I should have listened to my parents the the first time they ended up signing me up for basketball.

Um, but not listening became a very detrimental thing to my life because from second or from third grade on, when I started playing basketball, the rest of my life was just trying to prove to people that I was half as good as my sister.

And here we are today.

But, right, if I had only listened, this would have been a very different story.

Uh, and it's that lack of listening, that inability to hear that we often attribute to younger siblings, whether it's right or wrong.

Um, it's that that thing that I want to hone in on today, because it's actually really relevant to the parables that Jesus teaches, and actually really relevant, especially to the one that Jesus that we're looking at today.

You see, the reason that Jesus tells these parables isn't so that he could give some moral point at the end of it.

I think a lot of us living in like this part of the world hear about Jesus, and many of us are convinced that he's just a really good moral teacher.

That when he tells a story, that maybe it's about just saving money and being more frugal with it, maybe it's learning how to share, or maybe it's about like cleaning up our toys when we're done.

But that's not what he tells them.

He also doesn't talk in parables so that more people would understand.

And that sounds kind of backwards, right?

That sounds kind of weird.

Why would he do that?

Instead, this is what he says in Matthew's gospel.

He says, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Uh, he says it another way, again in Matthew's gospel, a little more clearly on why he speaks in parables.

Why do I say this?

Because verse starts like this.

This is why I speak to them in parables.

Why?

Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

And then go to verse 16.

But, but blessed are your eyes for they see, and blessed are your ears for they hear.

So why does he tell these parables?

Is that uh he's saying that those that might actually listen to these words, those that might hear these things, and not just like hear like a sibling in and out, but like hear these words, that they that you would be blessed.

That you would be blessed.

Like for those of us who are willing to do more than just sit and assume what Jesus is trying to say, or sit and come away with some simple like moral thing.

No, for those of us who have ears to hear, Jesus says there is blessing on the other end of these parables.

There's a state of happiness that's supposed to come with it.

And what does Jesus want to bless us with?

Right?

If if if all that's true, what does Jesus want to bless us with?

One more time in the Gospel of Matthew.

He says this about the parables on talking about them.

He says this one line.

It's not just to get smarter or wiser, but he says, if we listen, we would be given, and this says in Matthew 13, verse 11, if we listen, we would be given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 13:11

He's saying that if you hear, if you're willing to have ears to hear, that you would be blessed, and that blessing would come in the form of knowing the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

And when someone showed me that, I was just like, that is so cool.

That the parable, the parables are these keys into understanding uh the kingdom of God, about who got who God is like and the kingdom of heaven.

So that's where we begin with this parable today and this morning.

And especially with the prodigal son, right?

A story that you might have heard a hundred times, if not a thousand times, at least two times if you were here last week, um is that if you if if you've heard this a million times, that there's actually something more that maybe we need to be listening to.

That if if we have heard this story and haven't walked away blessed and knowing the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, that maybe we need to hear again.

And that's the invitation that God is giving you and me today to listen afresh, to listen that we might be blessed.

And not just today, but also next week when we look at the older brother and the week after, when we look at and we look more closely at the Father, and every time we hear these parables, there's an invitation for you and for me to really have ears to hear.

And I say that to a room this size because I think if you're here, not I think I'm convinced that you're here on purpose, for a purpose, and that purpose this morning is that you would hear Jesus' parable and invitation, maybe for the first time, and be blessed by it by having ears to hear.

So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at Luke 15 again, um, and we're gonna look at it more from the younger brother's vantage point and consequences to him, and we'll look at it in three movements, kind of a beginning, middle, end of how Jesus tells this story.

And before we start reading it, just as a little, I guess, spoiler, uh, Jesus' goal as he tells this parable for all people is that we would actually all identify with the younger sibling at the end of it.

That uh that as we hear this parable again and again and again, that we should identify with that younger brother character.

But today, as we embrace our younger siblingness, um, remember, my challenge is that we would hear it afresh, that we wouldn't have that like eight-year-old Roland Jimenez unable to listen to your mom thing, that we would shake that off, but then instead have ears to hear the secrets of heaven.

So if you're following along, if you found the white piece of paper, not the blue one, uh, we'll be in Luke chapter 15, and we'll start in verse 11, is where the parable begins.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

And Jesus, he begins the parable like this.

Uh, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property property that is coming to me.

So the father he divided his property between them, and not many days later, the younger son, he gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

And there, in that far country, he squandered his property in reckless living.

So the first movement of this story, right, we're introduced to the the main to the three characters of the whole thing, right?

A father and two sons.

And as Jesus begins this story, he gives us a picture of this younger sibling.

And this younger sibling, he has a vision for his life, right?

We can tell from his requests and his and his ventral actions that there's this yearning for something more that he has, that he knows he's unfulfilled, he's dissatisfied, and he he wants something more.

And the younger son, right, he he feels like this dissatisfaction that it's not going away anytime soon.

Um, but he is certain that he'll find it in one thing.

And that one thing is what is having more stuff.

He wants more money, more personal wealth, a new car to drive, uh a job that pays more, whatever, a gold chain.

He just simply wants more stuff.

And he's he's so certain that having more, that having this property that he feels is owed to him, that finally getting that is the thing that'll cure all his desires, that when he asks for his inheritance, he he's so certain that this will be the thing that he's also willing to wish for his father's death.

Right?

Without getting too much into the cultural specifics, um, these two sons that Jesus is telling a story about, right?

These two sons would have been entitled to the father's wealth and property.

Um, about two-thirds would go to the older brother.

The older brother was always like the one, and you're all of the time that we read our scripture, like that was the older brother was the one that was like esteemed and more important and culturally like at the top of the hierarchy.

Um, but also the younger brother would still get one about one-third of whatever was remaining would go to the younger brother.

However, right, of course, this would all happen.

The brothers would receive their property, their inheritance only upon the father's death as an inheritance.

And remember, when Jesus is telling this story, he's telling it to a bunch of first century Jewish people, right?

So when they hear that, they already understand what's going on.

The the original audience that Jesus is telling this to, they know just exactly what the younger son is doing here.

That essentially uh the the he that he wishes that his father essentially be dead just so that he could have his share of the wealth.

And what we see already, right, that the younger brother in this story wants the father's stuff more than the father himself.

And remember, this is a parable, a parable about God at the end of the day.

And already, how many of us uh wish for the things of God, go to God for his blessings, ask him to grant us wealth and prosperity for a new car, a job that pays more, a gold chain, but care little of his like presence in our life, care little about how he might change and affect us.

Uh doesn't that sound familiar?

But maybe just as surprising uh is that is the father's response, right?

Maybe just as surprising as the younger brother asking for his wealth now and willing to wish his father dead, even more surprising is the father's response in that he granted to him, right?

It would have been it would have made more than it would have been more than culturally appropriate for this father to chastise his son, uh, to make a mockery of him for bringing the family such shame and embarrassment.

Uh, he could have even driven this kid out of his home for for approaching him and asking such an audacious thing.

But the father does none of that.

Jesus says what the father does instead is that he hears his son's wishes and he grants them.

In verse 13, right, it kind of tells us uh uh about the son's journey, right?

It says it leads him into a faraway country.

Um, think about it like he went to Vegas, right?

Sin city, and he puts it all on red and loses it all.

Um so he loses everything.

But why I want us to focus on on verse 13 for a second is that in the Greek language, when this was written, uh there's this word that is used to describe the way that the son spends all of his stuff, to describe that living at the end.

And it'll be on the next slide, it'll be the thing in red, that word is acetos in in Greek.

And that word um in many of our translations is is often translated to wastefully or prodigally, right?

So he's he's he's he uh squanders everything in prodigal or wasteful living.

That's where we get this the name or the title for this um for this uh parable, the prodigal son.

But I think a helpful way of understanding this, Justin Martyr, this this Greek philosopher in the first century, knowing Greek really well, knowing this story really well, sees that word and the way that he helps describe it to others is that that word could also mean like a madness that knows no bounds.

In other words, the son spent all of his stuff with this madness that knows no bounds.

And already a few sentences into Jesus' story, what he's doing is he's giving us commentary on a reality that we all often live in.

It's that we confuse our madness for happiness.

Isn't that true?

I know it's true of me, right?

And whatever relationship you might have to Jesus and the church or Christianity or whatever, what we often do as humans is we often forego conventional wisdom, right?

We we we think that we are the exception to the rule that this this isn't a good idea or this isn't a good idea for most people, but for me, like it'll work out this time.

Let alone like God's wisdom in our lives, we think we that it'll be different for us.

And if I'm completely honest, right, in my heart of hearts, I know that the uh far too often that the absolute wrong thing is the thing that I convince myself uh will will complete me or bring me happiness.

Uh things like that that toxic habit, that that unhealthy relationship, that the serotonin that we get from social media or or really anything on our phones these days.

Right?

We we look to these things with such certainty uh that it'll it'll cure that longing that we have, uh, that that void would be filled.

We we go to them with this this frenzy.

We get what we want sometimes, and yet we're still wanting more.

We even do this with good things too, right?

Like our careers, our families, our reputations, maybe for like us at school, our our parents' approval of us, our grades.

We go to these things with with such fervor, or some might describe a madness that knows no bounds, and even get what we're aiming for, we get what we were desiring, but yet it's not enough.

And what we end up doing time and time again is we confuse our madness for happiness, and we we're stuck in a cycle.

So as Jesus begins this story, he's trying to sound the alarms for us, right?

He he's telling this, he's he's building this character for us, and he's saying, Are you hearing it yet?

Like, do you see yourself in this story yet?

Does does this sound familiar?

He's telling all those who are willing to listen, you and I today, is do you see yourself in the story yet?

And he goes on to the second movement.

Verse 14.

And when the younger son had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country.

What did he do?

And he said he sent him into the fields to feed the pigs, and he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave the younger son anything.

Verse 17.

But when he came to himself, when he was gifted the gift of realization, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have More than enough bread, but here I am, and I perish with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father, but not just that, I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as your hired servants.

So Jesus continues this story, and he tells us that this kid, this son, this younger brother, has nothing left to spend.

That at the end of this wild bender in Sin City, he's left to deal with the consequences.

He's in such a desperate place that he just wishes he could eat what the pigs were eating, the the pigs that he was actually feeding.

He wishes he could just eat the pods that they had.

And I I don't know what like the 21st century, 2023 Silicon Valley equivalent of like being a pig feeder is at a as at like a tech company, but use your imagination.

But that's where this son was, right?

Cultural historians often, when talking about this passage, they point out one thing.

And they have often pointed out that simply feeding swine, it's one of the lowest things a Jewish person could do.

It was an undesirable, not even job, just an undesirable act, uh, one that was that that came with like such cultural stigma.

So to eat with pigs was supposed to communicate a level of degradation to the sun, right?

Um, but what has happened is that it actually goes a step further to evoke this repulsion in the people listening that would understand what's going on.

That he didn't just feed pigs, he was trying to eat with them.

And the people hearing this are are supposed to be realize, like, oh, like this is such a low pit.

Like, really think about the younger brother's situation for a moment, right?

He he started off the story.

He went from a place in his father's home where his stomach was always full, where whenever he was hungry, uh he had food at arm's distance, uh and now he's in this wretched place where he just wishes to eat what the pigs are eating.

So this brother, right, the realizing in his desperation and this pit that he's in, uh, he comes to his senses, as the text says.

And he realizes that he should return home.

But before he can return home, what he thinks is he needs to prepare a speech for his dad.

Uh he knows that he's in the wrong, so he's like, I gotta come back with like, I gotta come back with something good.

And he says, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Right?

That's that's the crux of his speech.

He wants to pay his dad back.

And what Jesus is showing in the second movement of the story is that our shame leads us to sadness.

Right?

We see that in in verse 17 and in the son's solution.

Uh uh, his solution is to go home, but not just to go home and be taken care of, but to go home and try to pay his dad back for what he's done.

He recognizes that he's in trouble, that he has brought this great debt upon himself, that he has taken so much from his father that now instead of even being called his son, he just wishes to be a servant to him and to try and repay this incredible debt that he has built up.

But the dominating theme and the motivation to all of that, what is it?

It's shame.

And this shame it brings a host of problems with it, a host, a lot of sadness with it for this younger brother.

One, right, his identity is wrapped up in the shame by saying, I'm just a sinner before before heaven and my dad.

That's my identity now.

Two, it it's it's only shame that has prevented him from going home.

That's what we see, right?

Didn't go home sooner because he felt all of this shame in it.

And three, now his whole goal, his new life's journey, uh, his his new like thing to do is that he would try to reverse that shame to pay back all of that stuff that he has done and the shameful ways he has acted.

Yeah, see, shame, it has it tends to have this strong power in our lives, at least my life.

Right?

Well, whether it's because I grew up in a family where most of them grew up in the Philippines, or maybe it's just always been in me, or I picked it up somewhere, but shame has always been a really strong thing in my life.

Uh when I like it's it brings up this nasty mental block.

When I feel ashamed, when I feel like I've been acting shamefully, or if I feel like I've uh I should be ashamed because I've like hurt someone in some way, and shame is the dominating thing, it's difficult for me to say or or do something productive.

My view of justice or making things right, it's skewed because all I can think of is is the shame that's overwhelming me.

Maybe that's true of you too, but I bring this up because I have often brought that view of thinking uh into my like perspective of church and God and Jesus.

What what about you?

Right?

Have you kept yourself a distance from God because of something in your past?

Uh do you feel like you're too far gone uh for God to care about you in your life?

Uh have you felt like you've wandered uh way too far away to be found?

Uh do you feel like you're just not the right kind of person that God would care about?

Or maybe do you also share this view of God, the Father, as someone who wants you to repay him for all of the junk that you're responsible for in your life?

All of that stuff that that it's up to you to pay all of that back, that you know you owe someone something, and now you're gonna try to repay that debt.

And again, Jesus is he's telling this parable, and again, as he as he finishes this second movement, he says, Do you hear yourself in it yet?

Does shame affect the way that you see uh God?

The way that that uh is it keeping you from from being part of the fold?

Do you hear yourself in it yet?

The third movement uh of the younger son, uh it ends like this in verse 20.

So Jesus he continues on, and he says, and he arose, the the younger brother arose and came to his father.

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

And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you.

He's starting his speech, right?

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

But the father cuts him off and said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe, uh, put it on him, put the ring, put it on his hand, put shoes on his feet, show that we will clothe him like he is one of my own.

He's part of the family.

And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost, and now he's found, and they began to celebrate.

Beautiful story, right?

Jesus ends the younger son's story with him returning home, the father in a in a very undignified way for a man in the ancient Near East during this time, runs to his to his child.

Running is something that only children would do.

I'm sure we'll talk about in a couple weeks, but he runs to his son, and he's not thinking he's he there's not a thought about the ways that his son has wronged him, all the shame that he needs to cover up.

No, he just he just is happy that his son is coming home.

So he runs to him and he meets him.

And the son, he has his speech prepared, ready to share it, but the father cuts him off.

The father stops him short.

He's like, I don't need to hear that.

It's not even true anyway.

He cuts him short.

Why?

Because he has a party to throw.

He's like, we stop right there, we have a celebration.

Why?

Because his son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and now he is found.

And again, what what a beautiful story of father and son reuniting.

Like on first read like that, there's so much just beauty to it.

But I think for us to hear today, right, for us to listen as Jesus has challenged us, um, there's more beauty in the depth of it.

And for us to really hear all of that, Jesus is is kind of saying we we kind of need to zoom out a little bit.

That uh to really get what's going on with the younger son, the perspective, the consequences, and and this uh this reuniting moment, we need to zoom out a little bit.

Uh first, we have to remember, right, that that this parable, uh Jesus is Jesus is telling, along with two other parables, to make a set of three.

Um what he's doing, and this was all from last week, so it's a real quick recap.

What he's doing is he's responding to these religious leaders and elite because there's these people that are gathering around Jesus, and they don't like that.

They don't like the kind of people that are that are starting to form this like faith community in Jesus.

Um if you have your Bibles, it's in Luke chapter 15, verse 2, before all three parables are told.

Luke 15:2

This is how it's written.

Now the tax collectors and sinners, I forgot to get a slide, sorry, Glenn.

Um the tax collectors and sinners, if you had one up there, I would have been like impressed.

Uh the now the tax collectors and sinners, they were all drawing near to hear him, to hear Jesus.

And the Pharisees and the scribes, they grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners, and more than that, he eats with them, he identifies with them, he's he's okay, they're part of his community.

And like Ryan said, uh, so that's what that's what's happening.

Jesus hears that and he's like, I've got three three short stories to tell you.

And like Ryan said, those three parables, they all share this pattern.

Something valuable is lost, a careful search was made, and a big celebration was thrown.

And the first two parables, if you weren't here last week or don't remember, it's about a sheep and a coin, a lost, lost sheep and lost coin, essentially people's property.

And in those first two stories, you you think about like especially a coin or any kind of property, right?

You don't necessarily blame those things for getting lost, right?

You don't say, oh man, like my coin, mind of its own, like shame on you.

But in this story, like this kind of crescendo to the whole thing, Jesus tells his third story, but we can't help but know that it's the younger son's fault for being lost.

That it is clearly the younger son's own wrongdoing that leads him to this place.

And when we realize that, when you start to see that, we start to zoom out a little bit more.

And we start to think about our Bibles kind of as a whole.

And you can't help but notice and realize that what Jesus is doing, it's kind of sneaky.

Uh, it's like a Jedi mind trick, right?

Is he giving us this sort of meta-commentary on the narrative or the story of God's people throughout all of Scripture.

Read your Old Testament enough times, and you'll notice this pattern of God's people seeing something that they desire, but maybe shouldn't necessarily have.

But what do they do?

They take it anyways, and then what happens after that?

They find themselves outside of God's blessing.

Here's some more of like Jesus making these connections, right?

Uh in the Old Testament, the way that the people of God or Israel was referred to was as a son.

Uh, it's in Exodus, it's in the writings of the prophets.

Time and time again, the people of God was referred to as a son.

But what do those people do?

They often go and squander the blessings that God has given them just to find themselves in exile in a faraway country among the Gentiles, right?

Jesus, what he's doing is he's making it really clear.

He's making two things really clear.

One, he's a Bible nerd, and he's really geeky about it.

But two, he's making these really overt like connections with his story.

He's trying to say something.

And for those of us who have heard these stories again and again and again and now hearing this one, he's saying, Oh, there's something for you to hear now.

Right?

We see it with at the beginning of the story with Adam and Eve.

They see the fruit, they take it, they're banished from the garden.

There's God's people, they see gold.

Like, what should we do with that gold?

Let's take it and let's like make this golden cow that we can worship.

God doesn't like that, surprise.

Um, one more, right?

God's people in the Old Testament, they look around, they see all these other nations, and they have a king, and like, oh man, they're doing well.

We need a king.

And despite all the warnings uh and from a prophet telling them it's a bad idea, they're like, no, we're gonna go take someone for ourselves and make them our king.

And what happens?

It leads into the fracturing of God's people, it leads to their destruction and all that.

This is one of the biggest Old Testament like patterns, uh, and it's consistent about God's people.

They are constantly disobeying, wasting away the blessing of God, and they're and what happens is they are kept out of the promised land.

So, with all that, right, back to the parable that Jesus is telling.

He's telling these religious folk, right, a story that really it's imitating their own history, right?

Their story of breaking covenant with God and going in exile.

And you think of this prodigal son story now, and you hear the echoes there, that the son who disobeys his father, finds himself in a faraway country, this kind of exile, right?

Um, but in Jesus' story, in the prodigal son, it ends differently.

It ends with a father who rejoices simply in the return of his son.

And it's in this third movement that we realize this last thing is that our worth is found in God's gladness.

That it's God's grace, something that we don't deserve, that covers all of our sin and our shame.

That the secret of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus is telling you and me and all these people and for people for thousands of years, is that returning home means you will be accepted.

That you will be clothed with the signet ring, that you will be thrown one of the biggest of parties, regardless of who you are, where you've been, and what you've done, when you return to God, there is instant delight in you.

His joy for you, it goes beyond comprehension.

And it's not logical, but what it does is it shows a loving God.

And when Jesus is telling this story to a bunch of religious elites, right, he's saying that, what is he saying?

You're no different than the people who you think should not be here.

All the wrong people that you think are gathering for this church service, we actually we all stand on common ground, or you all stand on common ground is what he's saying.

That only God's gladness can you find true worth.

Not in you trying to cover up your shame and not in you like putting on this bold face of just religious um exercises.

That the happiness we are looking for isn't found in the madness, it's in God's gladness alone.

And what Jesus is ultimately saying, right, is that that party at the end, the the party that the real party that I'm throwing, it's with the poor and the crippled and the lame.

It's what I'm doing with the widow and the orphan.

Uh it's with it's the real parties with the brokenhearted, the weak, and all are welcome.

Would you see that you're the younger brother, that you are just like this, that we're all in desperate need of a God who would save us, a God who would cover all of our wrongdoings, uh, and join me in this party.

And Jesus, he says, right, you don't have to let your past jeopardize a future with him, and in fact, your past can't.

Why?

Because Jesus is the God who became man, that we couldn't possibly earn our way uh into this right relationship with God or pay back all that stuff and shame in our lives, that that thing that we celebrated a couple weeks back on Easter Sunday is that Jesus has defeated for us sin and death and shame and makes a way for you and I to know God personally and intimately.

And and and in this story, well, what is it how what do we do then?

Right?

Jesus says, all you have to do is accept my invitation that you hear this parable, maybe hear like for real for the first time, and all you have to say is, I want to come home.

So what's gonna happen now is the band is gonna play a couple of songs.

And uh, but I think what the the most appropriate thing from from hearing this parable that Jesus teaches us, um, I think the the next step or the application is that we just pray together.

That in a room this size, I'm willing to bet that that God is tugging on the heartstrings of some of you.

That as you hear this story, as you hear about this this younger brother who who who, for all intents and purposes, should not be allowed home, that God actually receives him gladfully with with this joy.

And that that's true of you and for me.

So maybe today, maybe for the first time, uh, maybe you felt like you've wandered and you're ready to come home, or maybe you've had this wrong view of God, that God is actually a God who wants you to work your way to Him.

Regardless of where you are, I want to invite you to pray with me.

Um, a simple prayer, a prayer that just acknowledges our need for God and His His power in our lives.

Um And as we sing these songs that we're reminded of that.

And then maybe the simple prayer is a prayer that you pray with someone else later.

Maybe you take it to the prayer team.

Maybe you sit the next couple songs uh and you sit with God as you hear these words, and then and then you can pray these words.

But regardless of where you're at in this room, uh would you pray with me?

Uh Father, God in heaven, thank you for uh my church family at Awakening that's here today.

Thank you that you have reminded us of your goodness through your scripture, through your teaching.

Um and as we sit here, some of our friends here want to pray uh and return home, maybe for the first time, maybe for the hundredth time.

And they join me as they say this, Lord Jesus, I need you.

Thank you for for dying on the cross on uh for my sins.

I've listened and I've heard your good news.

So now I open up the door of my life and receive you as Savior and Lord, place that only you can hold.

And I may not know what all that means now, but I know that you are good and you have my best in mind.

Thank you for forgiving my sin and my shame and giving me a life that will never see death.

Take control of the throne of my life, make me the kind of person you want me to be, and thank you that we can pray this in your name.

Amen.

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