That Is Not What I Expected | Pastor Brian Bullock

Let's go to the Bible.

Let's go to the book of Luke, chapter number 15.

And if you've been in church any point of your life, if you've been to Sunday school 101, 201, 301, 401, you've heard the story of the prodigal son.

Well, I'm gonna go right towards the end of this story.

And there's something that I believe that the Lord wants to say to us today.

Amen.

Hill, if you can stand up on your feet.

Let's go to Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Let's look at verse 20.

If you got it, say I got it.

If you need another second, say, Hold on.

I got you, I got you.

Luke chapter 15, verse 20 through 24.

Luke 15:20–24

I'm actually reading out of the ESV.

Uh, this is after the sun has left, the sun is getting ready to come back.

And the Bible says in verse 20, and he arose.

Who is he?

The son.

And he arose and came to his father.

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

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Verse 22.

But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe, put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and 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 is found.

And they began to celebrate.

The title of my message is That's Not What I Expected.

Can you slap your neighbor and tell them that's not what I expected?

Can you look at the person who slapped you and said, If you ever in your life ever touched me again, if anybody ever touched me again, you will get something you never expected.

Father, open up our eyes and our ears that we may receive a word from you that will change and transform our lives forevermore.

Hide me behind your cross.

Let your voice be louder than mine.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Everybody sit.

Everybody sit.

Amen.

Amen.

I have a question for every person in the room.

What made you come to church today?

She said, My grandma's prayers.

That's what made me come to church today.

I've been in church my entire life.

I'm not a PK or pastor's kid, but I am a church kid, church boy.

And uh I've been in church a long time, and I've discovered that many people go to church for many different reasons.

There are people who go to church out of tradition.

Mama went to church, grandmama went to church, great-grandmama went to church.

Going to church is just something that we do.

And there's some people who go to church out of tradition.

You're not gonna believe this, but there's some people who come to church so that they can figure out what number to play in the lottery that week.

They they hear the scripture, Luke 15, verse 20 and 24.

Luke 15:20

They say, Go ahead, play, play one, five, two, zero, two, four.

Come on now.

I was raised in the hood where drug dealers went to church to bless their business.

They say, God, don't curse me this week.

Don't don't let me die this week.

There are some people who go to church, you're not gonna believe this, but I know people who go to church because it's free babysitting for 90 minutes every Sunday.

You you drop off your kids and go get a Starbucks coffee, and you're just like, oh, what a great day.

You don't even care what I'm preaching, you're just glad just to not have your kids on your shoulder.

And some of you outside socializing because this is the most adult thing you do all week.

So who are you?

Tell me who are what's going on?

Y'all definitely not gonna believe this.

Y'all not gonna believe this.

There's no way.

There's no way, many hill.

No way you're gonna believe this.

Listen, I didn't want to say it because it's so stupid.

Uh, there's some people, you're not gonna believe this.

There's some people who come to church because they're looking for a future spouse.

Nobody, amen.

I heard a man say that.

Where where are you at, brother?

Amen.

Amen.

You're single?

You're not single?

Yeah, yeah, you should, yeah, you should.

Wait, wait, did you find her here?

You find her in church?

Yeah, that amen was lie.

That was a lie.

Anyone came here?

Come on, let's be honest.

Let's let's be honest.

Man, I know y'all not doing it.

North Mac.

Anybody want to be on?

You came here looking for somebody?

You came in looking for a man?

Looking for one?

She said, ah some of y'all like, can you imagine?

I'm gonna fan in the room.

What else can do?

Anything possible.

And y'all can't stand it.

Men, y'all gotta stop doing this.

Y'all be walking around with your hand in your pocket.

They can't stand when y'all do that.

They be looking at you, and you should be walking around like as soon as you do this, they be like, oh man, ain't you gonna hold on?

But more than stop laughing, but more than why you came, I'm interested in what you expected when you got here.

And if you ever spend some time with people who don't go to church, don't do church, you will find that they have expectations of what's gonna happen when they get to church.

They'll tell you that when I go to church, I just expect people to be judgmental.

That's right.

I I expect you to judge me because of what I wear, I expect you to judge me because of these tattoos, I expect you to judge me because of these piercings, because I don't know when to say amen.

I don't know when to say hallelujah, and I haven't been here in a while.

There's an expectation that I'm gonna be judged.

Some people expect me to be condemned.

And here goes the preacher.

Tell me I'm a sinner, tell me I'm nothing, tell me I'm going to hell with a what didn't they say in a handbast or somebody that just going, it's just nasty, just just you dying, you dead, this just that you expect me to condemn you and call you a sinner and your name.

There are some people you expect to be pressured, pressured to get saved, pressured to give.

Soon as I said 600,000, you said, see, there we go.

That's exactly why.

See, I already knew, see, I already knew where this was going from the beginning.

I get it.

There's an expectation that you're gonna be pressured to give, or or pressured to join, or pressured to be saved.

There's some people who expect church to be boring, the preacher's gonna be boring, and the singer's gonna be boring, and oh God, I don't want to go to church.

And I know many husbands who don't go to church because they say, Man, I already know we're gonna be in there all day.

I'm gonna miss the game.

I'm gonna, it's just ah, he's gonna be boring, and I just don't want to do a boring church.

And then there are some people who expect nothing.

You don't expect to feel nothing and be inspired by nothing.

You just thinking I'm gonna go to church, walk in, and walk out.

But here is my prayer as the pastor of Union Church.

My prayer is regardless of what made you come here or what you expected while you're here, that whether you walk through the door at North Met or Mint Hill or any other campus we open up, my desire is that at some point, whatever brought you here, that you leave here having had an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, and that you walk out of here saying, That is not what I expected.

I'm declaring that maybe it's gonna be a hug in the lobby, maybe it's gonna be a conversation outside, maybe it's gonna be one of the songs that are sang, or some of my times a CP standing up on the platform and saying something that awakens something on the inside of you.

Maybe there is something that is sung, something that is preached that on the inside opens up on the inside.

The old saints would say something on the inside will be working on the outside.

Oh, what a change in my life.

My desire and my heart and my prayer is that whatever brought you here, you leave here saying, God tapped me on the shoulder, God gave me a scripture that I needed, God spoke a word that elevated my heart, God made some clarity come to my mind, and that you leave here saying, I got more than what I expected into anybody here.

That's saying, I want to leave here having an encounter with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

Maybe that was not an ad that brought you to church, maybe that was God wooing you.

Maybe that was not just a Facebook post, maybe that was God trying to pull you back into church.

Maybe that was not just a text message from a friend, maybe the Holy Ghost was trying to get your attention.

Why?

Because one truth you need to know about God, man here, is that God is always trying to get you to come back home.

That's what we see here in the text of the story of the prodigal son.

Prodigal son trips me out.

This dude, cray, cray, crazy.

I mean, prodigal son, look, he he's he he goes to his father and he says to his father, give me my inheritance.

Now, the only way to get an inheritance was the father had to die, which means every day he was hoping his dad died.

Some of you got fathers with mothers with money, and you just like, How you are you breathing okay?

I'm breathing just fine.

Are you sure?

You got to think about it.

Every day he's looking outside, dad's doing push-ups, drinking beet juice, eating kale, and he's like, This dude ain't dying.

Father not dying.

So he said, I don't have time to wait for dad to die.

It's my money, and I want it.

So, by the way, he's a younger son.

You're supposed to give the older son his inheritance first.

So he says, I want to skip the older son, and I don't want to wait for you to die.

So I want my money now.

And you know what the father said?

Father said, Fine, you want the money?

Here you go.

One of the worst things that can happen to you is God give you something that he told you no to, but you wanted it anyway.

He said, There you go, it's yours.

One of the worst things that could happen to you is God, can I have that?

No, but God, no, but I'm just saying, no, but I mean, no, fine.

God said, Fine, you want it?

Here you go.

And then you get it and regret that you got it because you didn't listen to God's no in the first place.

And so here it is, Minthill.

He went and got his money, and the Bible says he went outside and spent his money, read the text, on wild and riotous living.

He was in Atlanta in '99.

He was over at the ring.

And then here, what happened?

What happened was the money ran out, and all of a sudden, everybody gone.

Ain't that just like sin?

Sin will woo you away from the house of God, get you outside, give you the greatest high can give you, and then all of a sudden, it will leave you lonely by yourself and drained of everything you got.

I'm just telling you right now, there's some of you in a situation where sin has pulled you away from God, and you just out there having a good old time, just enjoying yourself.

But the reality of it is that sin will always take you further than you really want to go, and it never tells you the true cost of what it's about to bring into your life.

And so just be careful if you're away from the house of God, that sin has not got you on a high because when it drops you, it drops you back.

So sin done dropped him, money done left him, people are gone.

Now, let's pick up in the passage what's happening here.

If you go and look straight at the Bible, let's read the Bible.

It says Luke chapter 15, verse 14, 19.

Luke 15:14

It says, About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve.

He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

By the way, if you were a Jewish man and you were feeding pigs, you were that was the lowest of low.

You you couldn't get no lower than that.

And so the young man became so hungry because he was starving that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him, but no one gave him anything.

Verse 17, I love it.

Says, when he finally came to his senses, that's my prayer for every person here that Saint got you trapped up.

I'm praying that you come to your senses.

Whatever got you bound, I'm praying that you come to your senses.

Anybody that's going far away from the house of God, I'm praying that you come to yourself and come to your senses.

What happened when he came to his senses?

Here's what he thought.

Wait a minute.

At home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare.

Why am I out here dying when even my father's servants got got some food?

So here's what he did.

He said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm getting back in the house.

I'm gonna get back in the house.

How can I get back in the house?

I need to write a speech.

So he wrote a speech.

This is before Chat GBT.

He wrote a speech.

He said, Here's what I'm gonna do.

I will go home to my father, and here's what I'm gonna say.

Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you're gonna love that.

Oh, he's gonna love that.

He's gonna love I sinned against both heaven and you.

And then he I'm no longer worthy being called your son.

Please take me on as a hired servant.

He gathers his speech, he heads back home because this is what he expects.

He expects that his father's not gonna let him in, that he's gonna have to give this speech, and then the father's gonna say, Fine, go ahead and be a slave.

Go ahead and be a servant.

But when he got to the house, that is not what he expected, is what the father responded.

Instead, the father responded to the son according to who the father was, not according to what the son did.

And the same is true for you.

God's response to you isn't determined by how bad you are, his response is determined by how good he is.

Let me say it again so I can slap somebody in the back.

God's response to you is not based on how bad you are, his response to you is based on how good he is.

Why is that important?

Because some of you are not running from God.

You are running from a version of God that you created in your head.

Let me say that again.

You are not running from God, you are running from a version of God you created in your head.

And what I've learned is that because people have not divided the word or truth, because of spiritual abuse, because of mishandling of the word, because of not understanding covenants, not understanding life before Christ, life after Christ, because we don't understand the significance of the blood or the death of Christ or the resurrection, but because of sometimes faulty teaching, misrepresentation of God, you have an image of God and you expect Him to be a certain way.

And I came to change that image you have because God is not what you expected.

And when you really experience God, you will find out that there are parts of God that you don't know.

Let me prove it.

Luke chapter 15, verse 20.

Luke 15:20

Now, let me just ask y'all, don't put that up before I read it.

Let me just ask you if you as a parent and your child wanted your money, took your money, spent it on that nasty girl.

That's how my mother said, she nasty.

She don't wash.

That's what my mother used to say.

She don't wash.

I can tell she don't wash.

Took the money, spent it on some musty dude.

And then came back to the house trying to get back in.

How many of you would have a little petty on you?

Who would have a little petty on you?

Oh, oh, look who's here.

Oh, you wanna come in?

Oh, you like it here now, huh?

What happened to your little nasty?

I thought she was gonna get nasty.

I thought she was gonna what happened to your little musty, dusty boyfriend?

Where that where that at?

Didn't work out.

Didn't work out.

Didn't work out.

Come on, y'all.

Didn't work out, huh?

That's what he's thinking.

He's thinking his father's about to be like, look at what the father did.

Luke 15 verse 20.

Luke 15:20

It says, it says, and he arose.

He arose.

He came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father did what?

Saw him.

Felt compassion.

Ran and embraced him.

And kissed him.

Y'all see that?

His father saw him in him and felt compassion.

And ran and embraced him.

And kissed him.

That is not what the son expected.

He was expecting anger, but he got compassion.

Here's my first point.

I did not expect compassion.

The son had to be shocked.

What is my dad doing?

Maybe he bumped his head.

Maybe he's got amnesia.

But there's no way my dad can remember what I did and be sitting here hugging me and having compassion on me like this.

Because what the son didn't know is that the father missed him.

That the father would walk by his room and see an empty room and say, I want my son back.

He did not realize that the father loved him, that the father was excited to see him, that the father wanted him back.

And the same is true for you, Union Church.

God misses you.

God is like, Come home, come back.

Hear me.

You don't have to convince God to love you.

And the reason why you're trying to convince God to love you because you have to convince the people around you to like you.

And when you spend your life trying to convince the people around you just to like you, you put their face on God, and now you view God as someone that I gotta convince Him to love me.

The Son don't gotta convince God.

Remember, remember, remember, compassion came before the confession.

Compass came, the confession came, the speech came in verse 21, but compassion came in verse 20.

Because the father said, I don't need your little speech, I don't need your rehearsal speech in order to give you compassion.

And the father saying, You don't have to convince me to love you.

That's why I sent my son.

Because you don't have to convince me to love you.

No, God has compassion.

What is compassion?

Compassion is seeing someone's pain and being moved to do something about it.

What is compassion?

Compassion is seeing someone's pain and being moved to do something about it.

I know here's what you don't understand about God.

You see people sin.

God sees what happened to make them that way.

You see what they did, God see why they did it.

And so when you see a sinner, you just say, look at nasty sinner.

When God sees a sinner, God knows.

Here's what I know about people who sin.

And all of us, all of us, all of us dabble in certain things because every time we dabble in some sin, we are trying to numb ourselves from a pain we refuse to confront.

Every time we are dabbling in some sin, it is because we are trying to numb ourselves from some pain, heal ourselves from a wound, deal with something that we refuse to deal with.

And the reality of it is that God has compassion.

Remember the woman he caught in the act of adultery.

Everyone said stone her, but he had compassion.

Remember the Samaritan woman who was at the well.

Everybody said, Oh, she had all these husbands, but he had compassion because maybe God knows something about you everybody else don't know.

God knows what that divorce did to you when you was five.

God knows that your father walking out on you, what it did to you when you were 10 years old.

God knows that that person putting that alcohol in your cup and you drink it at a teenager, and now you ain't been able to kick it ever since.

God saw when that thing happened.

God knows what the molestation opened up in you, He knows what the abuse did to you, He knows what the overexposure to images and sounds and things that came to your life as a child.

He understands what took place.

God knows that you're out here robbing, but he sees you crying in the midnight because you're trying to feed your family, and God is saying, Hey, I have compassion, which means that I see the condition you're in, and I want to get you out of there, I want to move.

You from that, and I want you to come home, and I want you to return to where I called you to be.

Let me back that up with some scripture.

Romans chapter 8, verse 33 to 35 says, Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

Romans 8:33–35

You are God's elect, but it's God who justifies.

Who is it to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand doing what?

Who indeed is, is, Midhill is interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Who can separate you from the love of Christ?

What is it?

Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword.

There is nothing.

There is nothing that can separate you from the love of Christ.

I hate to admit this as a parent and my children.

I said right there, son.

I don't know if you know.

I don't, I don't know if you know this, son.

I don't know if you know this.

I hate to tell you this in front of everybody, but I have lost you before.

I just want you to know that I lost you.

I don't want to listen.

Anybody ever lost your child?

Am I the only one?

Am I not?

Y'all are so judgmental.

Y'all are just so.

I got a child.

He looked at me.

Your parents lost you.

My parents lost me.

The children are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Many yo, stop, stop judging me.

Uh uh, you don't have to walk out.

I I got him back.

I got him back.

I got him back.

He here.

She's gonna kill me for that.

I I I I've been in a park and I told my son, you play right here.

Don't move.

You play right here.

And I mean, mosquito bite my scratch, my leg.

Look up, lost.

I have gone around the park looking for looking for my son.

And then my son's sitting in the in the sandbox playing, having the time of his life.

When I see my son, the first thing I do is doesn't I don't lecture him.

The first thing I do is secure him back.

I lift him up and I gave him bring him back.

You think that the first time God sees you, he just gonna lecture you.

No, he's gonna he gonna he gonna rescue you back.

He's gonna pull you in, he's gonna bring you close.

Now, after I brought him close and secured him, then I fussed at him.

My son is thinking I'm fussing because I'm angry, but I was fussing because I was scared.

Because what I'm trying to tell my son is hey, as long as you stay in my eyesight and as long as you stay where I can see you and close to my presence, I can protect you.

But the moment you escape my eyesight and escape my presence, I can't do anything.

And that's what God is saying to some of you.

God is trying to pull you and bring you back home because he said, as long as you're in my eyesight and as long as I got you close, I can protect you from everything going on.

But when you leave my presence and you leave my eyesight, God's saying anything can happen to you.

So maybe God's fussing at you not because he's angry, maybe he's fussing at you because he's concerned and he doesn't want to lose you, and he's trying to keep you where you belong.

Not only did the father have compassion on him, but watch this, it says that the father ran to him.

Y'all, this is crazy.

He ran to him.

Here's my second point.

I did not expect him to run to me.

Running?

Run okay, let me give you some Jewish culture because the Jewish community would have heard, they would have heard the story that Jesus was telling, and they would have said, This don't make no sense.

Because in that day, a patriarch of the family did not embarrass himself by running.

No, uh the leader of the family did not run.

It was seen as almost childish, a little bit embarrassing.

I'm the patriarch of this family.

You do know they want to roll.

So to run.

You had to hike up your rope and show your ashes.

And as you run it, you had to.

It was embarrassing for a father to run.

But hear me, the son thought he was gonna be embarrassed by the father, but little did he know the father was gonna embarrass himself in order to get his son back to where he was.

Your Jesus was sacrificed on a cross naked, he'd embarrassed himself in order for you to not be embarrassed ever again because we serve a God that ran after us.

Do you understand?

God ran after you, he ran after you.

God is running after you.

I know you're not perfect, but he's running after you.

I know you don't deserve it, but he's running towards you.

I know he ain't walking, he's running.

He's running towards you to bring you back.

I told you that this kid was in the pig man, which means he was in the famine, he was in the pig man, he's starving, he hasn't eaten, which means his breath is thinking, he hasn't showered, he's filthy, he's dirty, but the father doesn't say uh uh uh clean up first.

His father said, I don't care what you smell like, I don't care what you look like.

The father went and embraced him and kissed him because the father said, You don't have to take a shower before you come to me.

I am the shower, I'll clean you and I will wash you clean.

Is there anybody who's grateful in this room that God didn't wait for you to get it together before he came and put his arms around you?

But God got you while you was high, while you was drunk, while you was out of your mind, while you was in the middle of some mess, while you was in the middle of the mud, while you still suicidal, while you were still battling with depression.

God did not wait for you to get yourself together before he ran after you and snatched you back home.

Is there anybody that can take a 10-second praise break that you serve a God that did not wait for you to get clean?

He got you while you was dirty, he got you while you was nasty, he got you while you were stinking and while you was rugging, and God said, I love you too much to leave you where you are.

You're not here because you ran after God, you're here because God ran after you.

First John 4.19 says, and we love because we don't love because we're prayer warriors or worship warrior or a scripture warrior, whatever warrior y'all call yourselves, whatever warrior you want to be, that ain't why you're here.

You are here because we love, because he first loved us.

He chose us first, he came to us first.

Who do you think you are?

He came to you first.

I love to tell the story of uh this guy in our church, Luther.

Luther's one of my guys, and uh Luther, if you ever met Luther, he's about 6'4, 6'5.

He's like a tough guy.

Man's man drives a truck.

You know what I mean?

And uh and uh and I asked Luther one day, I said, Luther, what made you join Union Church?

And uh he said, interesting story, but he he said he he got invited to the church.

He said he drove up to James Robertson High School.

He said it was pouring raining.

He said he got out of his car.

When he got out of his car, he saw somebody from a distance running towards him.

And so he was looking at the person and he's thinking that there's somebody behind him that they're running to.

And he said, but as they got closer, it looked like they were running to him.

So Luther, it's like all of us got a little ghetto in all of us, you know what I'm saying?

Luther was like, if they pull up, we're gonna pull up.

If y'all wanna, if you I don't know, y'all, y'all.

If you want to pull up, we can pull up.

Luther says, dude comes over and stops at him, opens up an umbrella, puts it over his head, and says, Come on, man, I'm gonna walk you into the church.

Luther said, I've never experienced anything like that in my life.

He said, That moment, I said, This is my church.

He said, Before I ever heard you preach, I joined this church.

Before I ever heard worship, I joined this church.

I said, What kind of church would run out here and put an umbrella over my head?

He was never able to identify who that was.

We ain't seen that person since, but and I'm thinking maybe that wasn't a person, maybe God said, I got a son who's coming in this parking lot.

Maybe God stepped into a dream teamer and said, Run out there and get that son, open up the umbrella.

Why?

Because God will come running to you even in a parking lot.

God will come running towards you.

All right, here's my last point.

Musicians, you can play.

Not only did the father have compassion, not only did he run to him, but the Bible says that he threw him a party.

A party.

Here's my last point.

I did not expect all I done.

Mistakes I made last thing I'm making is a party.

Punishment?

Yes.

A party?

No.

Consequences?

Yes.

A celebration?

No.

This text is not saying that we don't experience consequences.

There are heavy consequences for certain actions.

What it is saying is that your consequences don't cancel your sonship.

You hear what I'm saying?

Yes, I deal with certain consequences because the Bible does say you reap what you sow.

Whoever heard you reap what you sow?

Can we take a praise break?

You ain't reaped everything you sown.

Some stuff you sow, God blocked it.

Some stuff you sow, God said, Not this time.

Some stuff you sow and God said, I'm not even gonna let you reap this.

You should be reaping some more from the craziness you sown.

But God said, I love you too much.

Some stuff I stopped from being sown or reaped into your life.

No, the Bible says, just because there are consequences does not mean your sonship or your identity in Christ has been canceled.

God is saying, No, we throw parties in heaven.

You know what we do every Sunday?

Throw a party.

You know what we were doing at Chambers, throwing a party.

You know what we were doing at Jan Robinson, throwing a party.

You know what we do every week at North America, throw a party.

Why?

Because in the Bible, here is the cycle lost, found, party, lost, found, party.

Come on, say it with me.

Lost, found, party.

Say it again.

Lost, found, party.

There are three stories, three parables in Luke 15.

In Luke 15, there is a lost coin.

The coin was lost, coin was found, we threw a party.

There's a lost sheep, sheep was lost, sheep was found, we threw a party.

There's a lost son, son was lost, son was found, we threw a party.

Do you know that's why we go outside for baptism and make you celebrate?

Because the person getting in that water, they was lost, they got found, throw a party.

This is why at the end of every service we say, make some noise for every person that said yes to Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because they started lost, they just got found, and we throw a party.

Heaven is looking to hear me.

Then people say, Union church, y'all are just it's like a club in there.

Just a club, club from heathen, some lukewarm believers.

Y'all just wanna, y'all just in there.

I just see people going in there, and the only reason why people are going in there is because they're just throwing a party, there's no revelation, there's nothing deep, there's nothing let me explain why we're throwing uh a party.

It's just loud.

Let me explain why it's so loud.

Let me explain why the smoke, let me explain the lighting.

Let me explain.

Luke 15, verse 25.

Luke 15:25

There's an older son.

The Bible says, Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working.

It says when he returned home, he heard and okay.

Now I understand the first part.

I don't understand the second part.

Bible says that he heard music.

He's coming into the house.

He's like, What is going on?

I understand hearing music, but he said he heard the dance.

What kind of dancing was going on in this house that all the way in the field you can hear the celebration?

All the way in the field, you can hear, don't tell us to turn our music down, don't tell us to be more reserved.

We are not going to be more reserved because in the kingdom there's lost, there's found, and then there's party.

And every single time somebody says yes to Jesus, we're gonna turn up the noise, we're gonna turn up the volume, we're gonna turn up the music, we're gonna, we're gonna boop, we're gonna go crazy, we're gonna dance, we're gonna celebrate because you was dead, and now you're alive.

You have got the wrong image of God in your head.

You you somebody has painted some influence because today, influencers and podcasters, and people on we we are in the ministry of exposure, so so we're truth tellers.

So, so for us, we try to find anybody doing anything wrong, and we want to point it out.

Anything we don't agree with, we're gonna expose anything.

First of all, there is no Bible for the ministry of exposure, there is Bible for the ministry of reconciliation.

You're supposed to be reconciling a lost world to a loving God.

That is what our job is, and I don't see that happening.

But because we're in a day where you can go viral for calling people out and blasting people's sin, and and if you preach anything that ain't sending people to hell, it's a watered-down gospel, it's a watered-down preaching where the reality of it is is we turn God into this angry, vengeful, hateful God.

And the reason why the devil loves it is so that you never come back home, so that you always think he is against you and not for you.

Let me burst this bubble right here with this passage, and then I'm gonna pray.

How many of you have heard it said, the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who gets saved?

Who've ever heard that?

The angels in heaven rejoice.

Do you know that's not what the scripture says?

Do you know that's not what it says?

It does not say that the angels in heaven rejoice.

Here's what the scripture actually says: it's Luke chapter 15, verse 10.

Luke 15:10

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

It doesn't say the angels are rejoicing, it says there's rejoicing in their presence.

Who is the one throwing the party?

Who is the one rejoicing?

It is not Gabriel, it is not Michael, it is God Himself.

God is the one who's dancing, God is the one who's celebrating.

The angels are saying, Here he goes again.

He's dancing, he's shouting, he's screaming.

One of his children must have come back home.

Stop looking at God, like all he's doing is just know where every time you come home, God is rejoicing, God is singing over to you, God is celebrating you, God hiked up his robe, God came running down, God came to get you back in the house, God put the robe on your back, he put the ring on your finger, he put the sandal on your feet, he put the crown on your head, he said, kill the fat of calf, he said, turn up the music, he said, start dancing, because my child is back home.

It was God.

The devil wants you to think a bunch of angels are singing.

It was God.

God said, I've been rejoicing over you.

Here's what the Bible says.

The son said, I'm not worthy to be called a son.

Just make me a slave.

The father said, I'm not changing your name, I'm not changing your position.

He said, You are gonna be my son regardless of what you did.

Is there anybody can just cop your hands right there?

If you're in this room and you don't know Jesus Christ, been healed.

I know I'm way over time, but if you're in this room, you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I'm praying for you right now.

Every head bowed, every eye closed.

If you want to give your life to Jesus, this loving Father, this Lord who cares about your life, if today, right now, while I've been preaching, you're saying, Man, my heart's burning because I know that the Father's calling me to return back home.

If that's you, can you just lift your hands and put it back down for me?

If that's you, if you're saying I want to come home, if that's you, let me see your hand.

Let me see your hand.

If you're in mint hill, come on, midhill, don't play with me.

If you're sitting here in that service, everybody's not saved in that service.

Let's not pretend like we all got it together.

There's somebody in the room that says, I want to give my life to the Lord.

Can you lift your hands for me right where you are?

I see your hand, daughter.

I see your hand.

Come on, I see your hand, my brother.

I see your hand.

If you're saying today, that's me, Pastor.

I'm the one, I'm the one you've been preaching to.

I'm the one, I'm the one.

Lost, and now I'm about to be found.

Man, heal if that's you.

Lift your hand right where you are.

I need everybody to repeat this prayer after me.

Come on, let's pray together.

Say, Father, thank you for loving me.

Thank you for sending your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for me.

Today, I surrender my life.

I stop running and I come back home.

I believe Jesus is Lord, and today I surrender my life.

Come into my heart, save me now.

I am yours and you are mine.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Come on, man, heal everybody shout amen.