[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here, and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Let's listen in. Thank you, thank you. Thank you one time for Jesus today. Come on, somebody.
For our King, for our Savior, for our.
Wow. What an honor to be with you this morning here at High Ridge Longview. I am so glad you made it to church. If no one else has told you, I'm glad you woke up this morning. I'm glad that you're here, and I believe God's got something special to speak to you. Let me just say thank you for coming to church. Thank you for making it a priority on this Memorial Day weekend. And so we want to say a special hello and what's up to everybody watching in online. So come on, let's welcome them from all over the world. Hello, hello, hello.
Welcome to our friends.
We are glad that you are tuning in from wherever you're watching from. God's got something to speak to you, too, as we turn our attention to his. To his word. Luke Chapter 15 is where we're going today. Luke, chapter 15. And as we're turning there, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being a generous church. Many of you have started supporting us financially, and we could not do what we're doing without a lot of people supporting us and standing behind the vision of what God is doing here. It is truly an honor, and I believe it's a. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing to watch God's people standing behind what's happening. Thank you for that.
We're still reeling over what God did a couple of weeks ago at Beast Feast, our fifth annual men's wild game event. God did some incredible things. Let's show you some video from that of just maybe the most important things to know. 26 men accepted Christ as their personal Lord and savior. Come on, somebody.
Our altars were flooded with men confessing their sins, pouring out their hearts to the Lord.
It was a beautiful, beautiful, powerful thing. Those things are not possible without people like you standing behind us financially. And so I just want to say thank you for those of you that are supporting us. It is absolutely making a massive difference, not just around the world someplace, but right here in Longview, Texas, in our homes, in our church. God is doing wonderful things because you're being so generous. Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much, very, very much for that. So Luke chapter 15 is where we're going. We're going to turn our attention back to our sermon series called Jesus the Storyteller. Jesus the storyteller. So about 30 times in scripture, Jesus gives parables to short stories that have amazing wisdom and insight. Stories that are more than just a feel good story, but stories that are, that are confrontations of our own conditions of our hearts. Jesus gives incredible stories and he paints with such a great paintbrush, has a vivid character, strong characters, and powerful, powerful scenarios that still speak to us today. And so as we're digging into Luke chapter 15, we come to the most most popular parable of, of all time. This is the parable of the Prodigal Son.
Now, I've never really liked that title because the Prodigal Son does not really convey what this story's about. The story's not about a son. The story's about two sons.
Two sons. And so let's not forget that there are, there are multiple characters here. And the Lord is just speaking more than just a feel good story. And we know that from verse 2 in chapter 15 when the Pharisees are making fun of Jesus and confronting him theologically. And they say this in verse 2, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them, like, oh my gosh, that's the worst thing you have on me is I, I ate with a sinner. Come on.
So, but Jesus begins to respond. Jesus fires back with not one story, but three stories.
And we know this to be a very special and powerful thing. Whenever something is mentioned script in scripture, three times in a row, that's something for us to pay very, very special and close attention to. There's a reason why when we talk about the holiness of God, the words in scripture say, he's all holy, holy, holy. You might have sung that in another church or at times you've sung holy, holy, holy. That doesn't just mean that God is holy, it means he's the holiest, right? That this is of supreme importance about his character, his nature. He is the holiest of holy. So when we see something repeated three times in scripture, we know that Jesus is making a strong point.
And when Jesus fires back when they say, oh, he's eating with sinners, he's drinking, he's a glutton.
When they, when they, when they fire this accusation at him, Jesus responds with three stories. And all of them have the same thing in common.
The lost, the lost sheep, a lost coin and lost sons, not just son sons.
And so Jesus is re emphasizing the most important thing about his ministry is the lost.
Let us never forget how important that is to Christ. He says, for this reason, I've come to seek and save the lost.
And so we pick this up in verse 11. I'm going to just. I'm not going to spend a lot of time telling stories today or giving sermon examples. I'm going to let Jesus own word, own words build the story together today and notice the powerful imagery and notice the strong characters that he paints this picture with.
Verse 11. He says there was a man who had two sons.
The younger one said to him, father, give me my share of the estate.
So he divided his property between them. The younger son got together all that he had and he set off for a distant country. And there he squandered his wealth with wild living.
And after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in.
I want to pause there for just a moment because you need to see that it's not just him making bad decisions. It's not just him being unwise. This is also bad circumstances, right? It says the country went into a famine. He doesn't control that. But interesting to see that the moment that he walks away from the father, not only does he make bad decisions, but bad things begin to happen, as God just says, like he has said to many of us, okay, you want to face all that by yourself?
And here we are, left to our own circumstances.
The young man begins to get hungry, he says. So he went and he hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to feed pigs. This would have been, by the way, the lowest of the lows for a Jew to feed an unclean animal, this would have been very defiling to him.
So this is not just a bad job.
This is the lowest of the low. For him, this would have been rock bottom.
He begins to feed the pigs, and it says that he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating.
Like, even the pig's food, like he can't get it. He wants what the pigs are eating. Now, if you've ever been around pigs, they don't eat the good stuff.
It's nasty.
But you see, he's in starvation.
He longs to fill his stomach with what the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. But he came to his senses. I love those words. He comes to his sense and he. And he says this. How many of my father's Hired servants have food to spare. And here I am, starving to death. Here's what I'm going to do. I will set out, I will go back to my father, and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven. I've sinned against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Just make me like one of your hired servants. And so he got up, he went to his father, and here's one of the greatest sentences you're ever going to find in the Bible. This is a powerful sentence. But while he was still a long way off, I love that God saw him. He wasn't close. He was still a long way off.
I don't have it all together. I'm not quite there. But he takes a step. He begins the journey.
And God met him through the Father. In this story, while he was still a long way off, it says the father saw him and was filled with compassion. Not judgment, compassion for him.
He ran to his son. He threw his arms around him. He kissed him. The son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven. I've sinned against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father interrupted him like, stop.
The father says, quick, bring the best robe and put it on. And put a ring on his finger and put sandals on his feet. Let's have a feast. Let's celebrate. For the son of mine was dead and is alive again. Notice he doesn't say he was just off.
He said he was dead and is alive again. He said he was lost, but now he's found.
Meanwhile, the older son, he heard music and dancing. So he called to one of the servants. What's going on? He asked.
Your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has come back to him safe and sound. The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
I'm not going in there.
I'm angry, I'm bitter, I'm offended.
Notice this. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, look, all these years I've been slaving for you. 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. Son of yours.
When this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes, when he comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him.
Look at the father, 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.
What a beautiful, brilliant parable.
I want to remind you that this is more than a story. This is a theological confrontation.
They said, look at you, you're eating with sinners. And Jesus says, let me tell you about what it means to be lost.
Jesus fires back with three stories in a row, this one being the most profound, the most popular, the Prodigal Son. I want to take a moment and dive into each of these characters, the three main characters, the younger son, the older son and the father.
Going to start right here about the talking about the power of grace for each of them. Number one, let's deal with this, the younger son.
And the title of this is Grace Greater Than Rebellion.
Grace Greater Than Rebellion.
Now, for some of us that grew up in church, some of you may have been pastors, kids, or been in church your whole life. I don't know about you, but maybe you remember what happened in the 70s, 80s and 90s as we began to glorify the most wicked of testimonies. Do you remember those moments where we had somebody come in and they began to share their testimony and they just go into all this crazy detail about what God saved them from. They're just the lowest of lows, the most wicked. And you're thinking, God must love them a lot because I don't have that kind of story. We have started a support group here called Testimony Envy Syndrome for those of us that have never, you know, I didn't kill a guy in Tijuana. I didn't join a biker gang.
I was like, no. The worst thing I ever did was read Harry Potter. And I felt so bad, so bad.
And now I read everything with discernment. I have discernment now about what I read.
Testimony Envy Syndrome. It's easy for us to kind of look at this story and kind of dismiss part of it as just a feel good story because there's a prodigal son that did dumb things and he came home. And we don't recognize that there's another side of that story as well. The story's about two sons.
And in the younger son, we see that God's grace through the story of the father, God's grace is greater than his rebellion.
Now, why this story is sometimes lost on us, I think, is because in American culture, we look at the son going away to a far away country and we understand that because we say stuff like he's Just going to find himself. He needs to go off on his own. He needs, he needs to experience life. He's. He's going through a phase where he might be a little rebellious, but he needs to go out there and experience the world.
But that's not the case here.
This is not an American story. This is not an American young person going off to define themselves and falling on hard times. That's not the story.
Remind yourself that in this culture, in the Jewish culture, in this time period, this would have not been a son just going off to find himself. This is public humiliation.
This would be the scandal of the town. Because the son's not just coming to his father and saying, give me part of my inheritance. In essence, in this culture, what the son is saying to these people would be, dad, I wish you were dead.
I don't want to be in your family anymore.
This would have been deep hurt and the father's heart would not be, oh, my son just needs to go off and be a rebel for a little while. He'll come to a sense. This is not that.
This is a deep, public, humiliating wound.
It says the father divided up his property. It's interesting, that word, property, because in the original language the word property is not there. It's the word bios, where you might know it as like biology, the study of life. Bios meaning life in the Greek. So the father's not saying, I just give you money. He's saying, you ripped my life apart, you tore my family apart.
And the son is saying, I wish you were dead.
It's much deeper than a feel good story.
And those that are listening to this story from Jesus would have had their hearts broken because they recognized how deep this wound is. That a younger son would say that you didn't just leave. You tore our family apart.
You did damage to us. You humiliated us to our friends and to our community.
This is a scandal.
This would have been an outrageous thing.
But here's, here's the crazy part. The father absorbs the cost.
By the way, this gives us a preview for what the father did by putting his own son to death on a cross. For me and for you.
He takes the cost upon himself.
He absorbs the cost.
And so the son takes his inheritance. He. He goes to a far off country, he squanders everything on wild living and partying, comes to the end of himself.
And it shows us that he, that the story kind of culminates at rock bottom with him feeding pigs. We know this from Leviticus, that, that's, that's a. No, no. These are. These are defiling animals. For a Judah, it would be. Around a pig at this time would be spiritual defilement.
So this is him not just turning his back on his father. This is him turning his back on his theology. This is him turning his back on his religion, his upbringing, all the things that. That the father had given him to raise him up in the ways of the Lord. He said, I turn my back on all that, and he finds the worst of all jobs feeding pigs and starving on the inside.
And notice the father's language. He doesn't say, oh, he. He was going through a rough patch.
Well, the father said he was. He was dead.
I want you to notice it, that the prodigal son wasn't just lost, he was spiritually dead.
Scripture records it as, we're dead in our trespasses and in our sin, the spiritual death.
And it says, while he was there, he came to his senses. I love that phrase. He had an epiphany. He had a moment, more than just a moment of clarity, more than just a moment where he's like, ah, you know what?
Perhaps I've made some bad decisions.
Here's a moment of clarity. He said, even my father's servants are better off than this.
This is bad.
And what was it that woke him up?
What was it that made him come to his senses? What made him awaken on the inside? Was it the fear of judgment? Was it the fear of being condemned? Was it the fear of all of his chickens coming home to roost? No, no, no. What woke him up, please notice this was the memory of his father's kindness.
My father's a kind man.
I know that I've hurt him, but he's merciful.
He's kind of.
And even though I may not ever be a son, he's kind to the servants. They've got it better off than this.
It's echoed, by the way, in the. In Romans 2. It says, it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. It says kindness, not the fear of what's going to happen to me. It's not the judgment, but it's kindness that leads us to repentance. So he prepares a speech. The younger son, he prepares a speech, father, I'm no longer worthy to. To be called your son. I have sinned against heaven. I've sinned against you. He gives this perfect speech that lets him know I really messed up. Please, just make me a servant. You know, give me the littlest bit of anything. Let me Come home as a. As a servant. I'll serve you the rest of my life. Just. I'm hungry.
He prepares a speech.
And so as he's coming down this road and the Father. Father sees him, he runs out and he begins to recite this speech. Father, I've sinned against heaven. I've sinned against you. And the dad's like, stop, I don't want to hear your speech. I'm just glad that you're home.
Shows us a very, very powerful truth that we still need to be paying attention to today. And that's simply this, that God isn't looking for performance or for perfection. He runs to repentance, a changing of direction when we come home.
But I can't measure up to your standards. I've messed up. Like, stop. Just stop.
I just want you home.
And it's so significant that the Father runs to him. This would have been an important, vivid language as Jesus is telling this story. Because Middle Eastern patriarchs, by themselves, they do not run.
Now, in our day, if you're getting older, you got children, you got grandchildren, you need to be running for your own health. That made you, not me, you, you.
But in this culture, don't let it be lost on you. Middle Eastern patriarchs do not run for several reasons. Because they would have to take up their robes, tuck them into their belt, exposing their legs, and that would be considered completely undignified and shameful for a father to run. You don't run anywhere.
You walk, you breathe, because you're in control and you're the Father. And it's. It's an honor society. This would have been incredibly shameful.
But the Father runs. Jesus is very, very clear. The Father runs while the Son is a long way off.
He does this to absorb the shame and take it upon Himself.
That's another reason why this is so important. There's something in the Talmud that we would know. If you've ever studied your. Your Jewish history, that's something called cazaza. This would be a ceremony that the community would perform for someone that had taken their inheritance and had lost it to the Gentiles. If you were to do something like take a wife from a. From a Gentile people, if you were to take your money or your inheritance and lose it gambling, or to lose it to the Gentiles, which are the lowest of the lows, to take that gift that God has given you as your inheritance and to lose it to Gentiles is the worst of the worst. And they would perform a ceremony called kazaza which literally translates to be cut off.
They would take pieces of pottery and they'd break it at your feet, saying, our relationship is broken. You're not welcome here.
You're a fool. We don't want you messing up our lives. You're not welcome back into this community.
You do dumb things. We turn our back on your shunned.
So the Father is not just running to embrace his son with his legs exposed, which is undignified enough. He's running to save his son from public embarrassment and humiliation that the community would impose upon him. The Father shields him from condemnation because he's a good father. The Father takes and absorbs that shame upon himself twice.
It gives us a powerful view of the Father's love, the depths of our sin. What the Father is willing to do.
This Father runs, being undignified.
I'll say it this way. The Father trades his dignity to restore his son's identity.
He trades his dignity to restore the Son's identity.
And he says, bring out three things. He says, bring him the robe. This signifies honor. I'm going to honor my son. He says, put our family ring on his finger. This means that from that moment on, the Son can now do business underneath the Father's name. That's incredible.
Then he says, put sandals on his feet because slaves don't wear shoes. He says, this is sonship.
The Son repents.
The Father runs.
And what we see is a picture not of partial restoration as a servant, but full restoration as a son. That's a scandal. As Jesus paints this picture. Full restoration from the moment that he repents, that confronts our theology, I think, because I think some of us in our. In our own past, we look at the things that we've done to mess up, and we think, if I repent, it's going to be a while before I'm. I'm. I'm ever restored again. God's going to put me on probation. No, no, no. This story proves that repentance brings restoration, not probation.
Restoration.
He's restored as a son. So we've talked about the younger Son and grace greater than rebellion. Let's. Let's dig into the older son for just a moment. Number two, the older son. We're going to call this grace greater than self righteousness, because this would be the second ditch that many of us fall into.
One is in the depths of our sin, being lost and separated from the Father.
The other side is being lost in our own self righteousness, because I'm better than that.
So here we see the Older son. And while the house is celebrating, the older son fumes and he doesn't say, father, I've been here serving you. He says, I've been a slave for you. I've done everything you've asked. I've slaved here for years and you've never given me nothing. It's about me. Look at me. I'm a slave for you. You never let me enjoy the littlest of things with my friends.
And then he said, he doesn't call his younger brother a brother. He says, that son of yours, I'm a slave, but he's your son.
But I was faithful. I stayed here. I did everything right. I didn't leave like he did. He squandered his money on prostitutes and wild living. And, and you just accept him back and you don't? What about me? I was here. I did the right thing.
This has gone past the place of being a little angry. This has gone into offense and into bitterness.
I want you to see what happens when that begins to take root in our, our own spirit. Bitterness distorts reality and dismisses the winds.
And when God begins to do something powerful in people's lives, we can't see it because we're busy being bitter and distorting reality of what I am and what someone else gets.
Bitterness, self righteousness.
To Jesus audience, especially the Pharisees, this would have been the point in the story where Jesus gives what he always does. In every great story, Jesus gives a twist and the person that you thought was going to be the hero becomes the villain, and the villain becomes the hero. The older son becomes the villain. Even though he was faithful, he did things right. I never left. I didn't go off sinning, I didn't waste.
And he becomes the villain in the story. That's, that's pretty messed up. And then the one that goes off sinning, he becomes a hero.
This would have been a crazy twist. This would have messed with people's minds, especially the Pharisees, because in this moment, as they're reading the story, they're like, wait a minute, he's talking about us.
Me.
This is not a feel good story. Remember, this is a theological confrontation. This is a rebuke to religious people.
And the self righteousness, the ditch that we sometimes fall into shows us very clearly. I want to put this on the screen for you to see it. Jesus challenges self righteousness just as much as he challenges rebellion just as much.
He shows us some pretty powerful things that I think we need to come into.
Need to at Least be aware of.
For those of us that have been raised in church, never left, been faithful, there's a ditch that's very easy for us to fall into. It shows us some powerful truths about ourselves. It shows us that we can be in the Father's house and not know the Father's heart, be in church every week and not know his heart.
And we still treat church as a place to give me. God owes me.
I've never left, I've been here, been faithful all my life.
From Awana till right now, from Royal Rangers to right now, faithful since kids ministry. Great, awesome, beautiful. But be careful.
We can be in church your whole life and not know his heart. And Jesus is very clear that his heart is for the lost. For the lost. For the lost.
To get those here and to get those that are here to celebrate with those that were there.
You could be in the Father's house and not know the Father's heart. It shows us this very clearly that we can obey all the rules and still miss the relationship.
They're not the same.
As a matter of fact, depending upon the way that you read the scripture, Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments.
But through the lens of grace, we recognize that the truth is a little bit different than how we frame it. If you love me, you'll keep the commandments.
Jesus shows us very clearly from this story that we can be moral and not merciful.
And you've missed the point.
The Pharisees would have not wanted to hear that because he's confronting something that they've lost in their religious spirit.
It shows us really, really clearly that the older son is just as lost as the younger son. The difference is he doesn't know it.
The younger son knew he was lost, knew he had messed up, and comes home with humility.
Lord, I'll just be a servant. But the older sons, I'm better than that.
It shows us through this parable that self righteousness is just a different kind of rebellion. Here's the good news. Both need grace.
And the Father has grace for both of them.
So here's the third and final character that we see in this story. Number three. We see that it's the Father's love. And here's the great news. He pursues both sons.
He pursues both.
This is not one prodigal son. This is two sons. And the father doesn't just leave the porch to go running towards the prodigal. He also leaves the party to go after the one that will not come in and this is Jesus saying to the Pharisees, come in.
This is a story, by the way, meant to pull them in deeper. He invites them into the divine drama, saying, come, be a part of this story. Take your religious ways and your rules and recognize that there's a relationship that's beautiful, that's happening here. Get in here.
The Father leaves and goes out for both sons. It shows us very clearly that God's love isn't passive, but it pursues those that are lost in sin and those that are lost in self righteousness.
You see, the true main character here is not the prodigal son. The true main character here is the Father and his amazing love, his amazing grace.
The Father that leaves to go bring back the ones that are lost and those that refuse to come in.
The true main character is the Father.
That amazing pursuing love, that incredible grace, a love that bears shame, that pays any price, that destroys barriers, a love that builds bridges. The story isn't just for the broken. It's a rebuke to religious people with no compassion.
What's the point of this? Here's the point. Very simply, God just wants his children to come home, to come home, come in, get in here. Be a part of what's important.
Let go of your ways.
Embrace mine.
You know, perhaps the craziest thing that we see in this story in Luke 15 is that we don't see the ending. The parable ends on a cliffhanger.
You ever seen a movie and you're like, ah, at the end, what happened?
There's some great movies that end on a cliffhanger. And this leaves you wondering, well, does the older son come in? Does he go to celebrate with his younger son? Is there a family restoration? Or does. Does the younger son stay in? Does he go right back out? Does they ever struggle again? Is, does the Father continue to love both of them like this? We don't know.
The parable ends on a cliffhanger. Why does Jesus do that? Why does he not tell us the end of the story? And I believe it's for this very, very simple reason, because you are supposed to finish the story.
You finish it.
Once again, this story is not a metaphor. Please hear me, Please hear me. It's a mirror.
It shows us our life.
It shows us the condition of our hearts.
And for some of us, we recognize, like, I'm a prodigal, I'm far from God right now. I need to come home.
And for others, we've gotten lost in our own self righteousness.
You need to come in the Father goes out and tells the older son, he says, look, I love you, all that I have is yours.
But we gotta celebrate.
Your brother was dead and he's alive.
We have to celebrate the resurrection together.
There's a reason to party, there's a reason to rejoice. There's a reason. And it's not about you.
Let's celebrate because we're together.
You're supposed to finish the story.
It's a mirror.
Let me ask you a question. What's keeping you from being all in?
Jesus gives parables to take people that were on the outside and bring them to the inside. But he leaves it up to them of whether or not they'll embrace the story and apply it, whether or not they'll see themselves in the story and say, I hear what you're saying. That confronts my sin, that confronts my self righteousness, that confronts the way that I think and I want to come in.
And Jesus is still giving it the same invitation today to those that are lost, to those that have wondered, to those that have been sidetracked by their own self righteousness. I don't have a testimony like them, like, just get in here, just get in.
Well, I want church to be about me. Give me something.
It's not about you.
This is why it's so important, so critical to us as a church that we never lose the message of what Jesus is saying three times in a row.
Sunday mornings are not about you and they're not about me.
This is not about me entertaining you. Are you finding something to feed you one more time?
You're mature enough to feed yourself.
Sunday mornings are about the lost. Hear me about the lost.
Let us never ever get that twisted. Let us always be a place where people that are far from God can come home and where the people that are here will celebrate with you. Because that's the point.
I wonder what's keeping you from going all in. What's keeping me from going all in?
There's the story that Jesus presents now. It's been so encouraged this past week of how many of you have dmed me and emailed me, some of you that caught me on the street or see me, you know, hearing out and they're like, man, I've been reading the story of the prodigal son. You challenged us to do that. And the Lord's been speaking so much stuff out of it. We're going to, we're going to push this on to another week. And next week we're going to move into Luke, chapter 10. We're going to talk about the story of the Good Samaritan.
And I want you to see this story from a different perspective. It's different than what you think. It's different than how it's been presented to us for many years. And I believe the Lord wants to speak to you.
Through your own relationship with him, the word of God comes alive. That's called rhema. It begins to speak right into your heart. Ask yourself three questions. I want you to read it between now and next Sunday. For those that want to go deeper in their relationship with the Lord, this is your invitation.
For those that want to treat church as entertainment, go ahead. I'm just glad you're here.
I'm inviting you in. Deeper.
Luke, chapter 10. He paints an incredible picture of the Good Samaritan. Ask yourself three questions. What's the Father's heart in this story?
Ask yourself a second question.
What does this say about my heart?
Jesus parables always show us the heart of the Father. They expose our own hearts in the process. The third question is, what practical step can I take to live this out today?
When you just ask yourself those three simple questions, the Word of God comes alive, begins to do its work inside of each of our lives. It exposes the parts that need to be exposed and corrects us, divides between our intentions and our thoughts and our actions.
Helps us to walk this out every day. I want to finish it up right there, if that's okay. Would you bow your head and close your eyes?
Let's just have a moment of responding to what the Holy Spirit may be saying to you. If I've done my job correctly today, I believe the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you about the condition of your own heart.
The way that you see the lost. Or perhaps the way that you see the Father.
Perhaps it's the way that you experience grace.
Because for some of us in this room, we foolishly believe the lie that grace was for those that were really messed up and forgotten, that we need grace, too.
For some of us, you don't have a relationship with the Lord, and you need a relationship with the Lord.
My friend, I'm glad you're here.
You are welcome here.
This service is for you.
I believe if you could see it right now, God himself, the Father, is reaching down his hand to you, saying very clearly, come home.
Come home.
It's time.
For others in this place, you may have never had a relationship with Jesus.
You're in the right place. My friend. I'm glad you're here.
And this moment's for you too.
For still others, you recognize I'm struggling with some self righteousness.
I need to come. I need to come home with heads bowed and eyes closed.
I want to invite you, no matter what category you may be in, to come back to the beginning. A prayer of repentance.
A prayer of simply asking Jesus to be the Lord of our lives.
A prayer of submission. You may say, pastor, I'm not really sure how to do that. Let me help you. I'm going to help you the same way that someone helped me one time.
And I believe God is going to meet you no matter where you are.
So can we repeat this prayer? Actually, let's all of this. All of us do this together right where we are. Let's pray this prayer out loud. I'll tell you what to say. Pray this with me. If you would just say, jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.
I believe that you came and died, and I believe you rose from the grave so that I could have life and forgiveness and grace.
I need it.
Will you help me?
Would you. You forgive me?
I'm all in.
With heads bowed and eyes closed. If you prayed that prayer today, maybe for the very first time, if you've been away from God and you say, pastor, I prayed that prayer, and I meant that prayer, can you just do me a favor? With no one else looking around, can you just slip up your hand all across this place? That was me, Pastor. I prayed that prayer. I see you. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, ma' am. Yes, ma' am. I see you in the back. I see you in the balcony. Good for you.
Good for you. Good for you, my friend, if that was you and you prayed that prayer, I'm not here to embarrass you in any way. I would never do that.
But I want you to know that on the screen behind me is going to appear a phone number. I want to invite you, if you pray that prayer, to text me. Text the words I prayed to that number. And what's going to happen when you do that is I will send you back the link to some things that will help you understand what. What just happened in your heart and what to do next.
It's the greatest honor of my life to help people know the Father.
I appreciate you doing that for me. Good for you.
For everyone else, go ahead and look up at me if you would, then would you stand to your feet with me? Together today, I'm going to invite our elders and their wives forward, and they're going to be here to Pray with you about anything that you might need prayer about. They'll stay as the service ends to pray for. You also want to remind you if you've been coming to church here for a while and kind of kicking the tires around here thinking, I feel like this might, this might could be my church home. If you're interested in how to make this your church home, our class for that is called Growth Track. That happens every single Sunday in the third service. So that's happening in just about half an hour in the building right behind me. So there's some incredible people there that run our Growth Track class. You can ask questions about what we believe and what you're expecting of me. If you want to make this your church home, then that happens in about 30 minutes right behind me. And then also one of the beautiful things that happens at the end of third service, in case you've never seen this before, we have baptisms today and there are a lot of people getting baptized. Let me tell you, if you've never seen a whole family get baptized at one time, you need to see that.
If you've never seen fathers baptizing their children, you need to see that.
You need to see.
We talked about bitterness, sometimes dismissing the winds and not seeing what God is doing. I need that. You need it because life gets hard, it gets confusing, we get cynical, we get self righteous.
When you can watch sinners coming home, we watch whole families repent. You can say, I can keep going. God's moving in this place. I can push through.
You need to see it. It's a beautiful thing happening today and that's happening at the end of third service. And you're more than welcome to go grab some lunch and come back and see that. You need to see it. It's beautiful. And for everybody else, let me pray for you and say thank you for watching online. You guys are awesome. Can we just welcome in those one more time and tell them thank you for watching online. If you like what you heard, please consider sharing this message on social media. I think people need to hear it. Let me pray for you and bless you. Father, would you bless my an incredible week? Would you speak to them through your word? Help them to understand the power of your parables and stories. Help them to walk in your goodness and grace all week long in Jesus name and all of us said together, Amen. God bless you as you go. I hope you have an awesome Memorial Day weekend.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message if you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening. If you want to be a part of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv. Or you can check out our
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