Father, we do praise you. Just like we worshiped you this morning. You are such a wonderful, powerful, awesome, loving God. And we thank you for adopting us as your very own children. And Jesus, we thank you for making that happen, for saving us and being a friend. And Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our teacher. And we ask you to teach us this morning that you would speak to each of us, either through something I say or even directly into our hearts, that we would each go away knowing that we have heard something for us from you. And so we trust you with that, and we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. For the next three weeks, we're going to look at what Charles Dickens called the greatest short story ever written. It wasn't actually written, it was spoken. And it is undoubtedly the greatest story ever told. It's the parable that we call the prodigal son. And we've never talked about it before, like in depth. It seems like we have because we talk refer to it so much, you know, as we're talking about how compassionate God is and how loving He is. And it's such a great example of that. It's also kind of a special story to us because we talk about partying on Sunday, you know, and and uh and Susan talked about prayer after the partying. Where that comes from is from this story. Um the idea that when when when lost people are found, it's time to celebrate. And it's something Jesus taught in this uh in this amazing amazing story. Now we call the story the prodigal son, which is just uh a name it was given. I mean, it could easily be uh the lost two sons or the the compassionate father. But no matter what we call it, it's an amazing, wonderful story. To understand where Jesus is coming from, we have to understand uh the situation that prompts Jesus to tell the story. In fact, anytime we're reading what Jesus uh said, and we really want to understand it, it's a it's a good thing to go back and look to specifically who he's talking to. When Jesus was teaching, he would tend to talk to different groups. It might be an individual sometimes, that was the case, but he'd be talking to his followers, and he'd be talking to the Pharisees, and sometimes he'd be talking to large groups of people, and and even go back and forth, like on the sermon, uh the Sermon on the Mount. He goes from one group to the other and and back and forth. Um, this time it's the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees were the religious elite of that day. They were the uh Bible scholars, they were legalistic and they were judgmental, and they thought they had it all all together. And it would be a parallel to some uh some people in church today. It would be um priests or or or pastors or reverends or or anyone that comes from a legalistic point of view where where God is so demanding and he's so hard to please, and we just have to be the morality police for the for the entire world. Now, thankfully, uh most pastors and priests and reverends and those type of people, Bible scholars, aren't like that. But there's certainly a significant number today, uh just like there was in uh in Jesus' day. Uh legalistic, demanding uh people. So here's the situation. It starts in Luke 15. Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people, even eating with them. And so Jesus told them the story. To eat with someone was a sign of friendship. It was kind of a big deal. Uh a little bit like it is now. We would go and share a meal with a uh with a friend, um, and Jesus was eating with and friends with a bunch of messed up people. Um, tax collectors, as you probably know, were the low of the low to Jewish people. You know, Israel was an occupied country. The Romans had taken over an occupied uh Israel, and there's a big political controversy of that day. There's always some sort of uh political controversy. Like right now, I'd say that the big controversy is debt and the debt ceiling and what we're gonna do about that. In Jesus' time, it was this whole area of taxation, and amongst the Jewish people, could you pay taxes to to the Roman government? Because the Caesar thought of himself as God. And so could you take coins with his uh impression on it and give them to him, would that be okay? Jesus is asked that uh question specifically, and he he says, Who is on the coin? He says, give to Caesar what is Caesar's. But it was a b a big deal to them. And the way they would collect taxes is with Jewish people that were kind of like turncoats. They went over to the Roman side, the Roman soldiers would go with them, and they would extort as much money as they possibly could get. Because there'd be some minimum amount they'd have to pay, but the tax collector got to keep uh the rest. And so the Pharisees, actually all Jewish people, but especially the Pharisees, hated tax collectors. They were uh they were traitors and they were ungodly in their mind. Um it wasn't bad enough that Jesus hung out and was friends with tax collectors, but it was the other notorious sinners too: prostitutes and addicts and generally sinful, messed up people. Now, by hanging out with them, Jesus wasn't affirming the way that they lived, he was affirming them, their value as people, their importance to God, that they were in fact lovable, and he loved them. The religious leaders and the Bible scholars hated that. And so Jesus responded with three stories in a row, all designed to show the proper response when a broken, messed up person reconnects with God. It starts with the story of the lost sheep. Shepherd has a hundred sheep, ninety-nine of them are fine, one's one's uh lost, and so he is so excited when he finds the one. And Jesus says it's like that in heaven when just one person reconnects with God. Then there's a story of the lost coin. It's kind of interesting when Jesus tells stories, he often alternates them between men and women. So he'll tell a parable with a man at the center, then immediately tell a parable with a woman at the center. So the next story he tells is uh the story of a widow who's lost a coin. It would be her uh you know, her means of livelihood. So she searches the whole house, and when she finds it, she's so excited that she invites her friends over and they have a big party. And Jesus says, it's like that in heaven, except the friends are the angels, and they come and they're excited when one person, one lost person, reconnects with God. His point to the religious people is you have it backwards. You shouldn't be mean, you shouldn't be angry, you shouldn't be upset, you should be celebrating. You should be celebrating. And so then in Luke 15 and verse 11, it says, to illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story. He then tells the longest parable that Jesus uh tells. It's the only parable where he describes uh God in such a physical nature, in such physical terms. And there's a lot of details, there's a lot of uh things that we can learn from the characters and what he teaches us. But as we go through that, we don't want to miss what the main point of the story is. It says to illustrate the point further, Jesus told him the story. So what is the point Jesus is illustrating further? It is that a relationship with God is something to celebrate. It's good to be loud, it's good to be excited, it's good to laugh, it's good to have fun in church. A relationship with God is something to celebrate. Why would we be uptight? Why would we be frustrated? We have God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. We have each other. It's something to party about, it's something to celebrate. We were lost, but now we're found. The main point Jesus is making is Pharisees lighten up. Stop judging, start celebrating. And here's the story. A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die. Now, one of the great things about many of the stories that Jesus told is that they've got this shocking twist to them. Now, a lot of times we don't catch the shocking twist part of it because we know the story. You know, and sometimes it's because it's a different culture, but a lot of times we just know how the story goes, and so it doesn't seem as uh as shocking to us, but to feel the shock in this story, we really have to try and put ourselves in the Pharisees' place and kind of see the story through their eyes, as if we're hearing it for the very first time. Now, in the Middle Eastern culture, for someone to demand their inheritance before their parent had died would be unheard of. And it would have been incredibly offensive to the Pharisees. It would be like saying, I wish you were dead. Just give me my money, I want you out of my life. I wish you were dead. The Jewish culture was a very family-centered culture. You know, they'd stay on the same property together in large families for generations and generations. And specifically within a family, the inheritance was a very big deal. In 1 Kings 21, there's a story about Naboth from Jezreel, who owned a vineyard in Jezreel beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. One day Ahab said to Naboth, Since your vineyard is so convenient to my palace, I'd like to buy it and use it as a vegetable garden. I'll give you a better vineyard in exchange, or if you prefer, I'll pay you for it. But Naboth replied, The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance that was passed down by my ancestors. He wouldn't sell it because it was the family inheritance. It was so important to them. It was so important in their culture. Inheritance was a really big deal. Not only that, respecting your parents was a very big deal. After all, it was the fifth commandment, you know, to honor your father and mother. And so for this young man to ask for his inheritance now is to say, hey, give me my money. I want you out of my life. Obviously painful for dad, but unbelievable in that culture. I mean, the response would have been intense. At the very least, a public beating and a total disownment. But in truth, he probably would have been stoned to death. And so the Pharisees are already ahead of Jesus on this story. They know where the story's going. That the villain in this story is this insolent, selfish jerk of a son. But here comes the first shock. So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. He did it. Unimaginable, unbelievable, no moralizing. He just did it. Regardless of how painful it was for him, he divided his inheritance amongst his sons. But the story gets worse. A few days later, this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land. And there he wasted all his money in wild living. And so, by a distant land, what the Pharisees here is a Gentile land. I mean, it would have to be another huge tweak to the Pharisees. An unclean place, unclean people. A very big deal. And on top of that, he wastes his money on booze and drugs and sleeping around. Wild living. Well, about the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve. And so the Pharisees, maybe catching up with the story, would think obviously God's punishing him. Often that's the reaction when calamities happen in the world. God must be punishing somebody. But in fact, we live in a messed up world and calamities and stuff happen. Often what God does is he uses these things. In this case, his foolishness was combined with circumstance to create a situation that he could just not get himself out of. The circumstance was a famine. We haven't experienced a famine, but a famine's a devastating thing. Where your people are millions of people sometimes are starving to death, desperate for anything at all to eat. So what we're going to see is that it creates a turning point for this young man. We've talked before how sometimes the most difficult situations we look back are back on and say, you know what? That's the best thing that ever happened to me. Because it creates a turning point in our lives. And I just share that because I know that in a group of this many people, some of you are in that situation. A difficult, desperate situation. And I want you to know that God's going to turn it to good. It's going to turn out good. It feels horrible now, but God will make it a turning point in your life. Romans 8 28 says, and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. And it's not that we won't have troubles, it's just that God will take these troubles as hard as they are, and he'll turn them for us, for our good, and he'll do that for you. And it's definitely true for this young man because this becomes a turning point in his life. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into the fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything. Man, what a desperate situation for this young man. And Jesus is part describing that, and so we can see and fill the desperation. But he's also doing something in the Pharisees' hearts. Because the situation just keeps getting worse and worse and worse from their perspective. The farthest thing that a Pharisee could imagine for a Jewish young man, he insults and humiliates his father, he travels to a Gentile country, he wastes everything his father had worked so hard for. Now he's no longer Mr. Good Times. He is broken, degraded, and working with pigs. The most disgusting, offensive, unclean animal alive to a Jewish person. This is kind of a great metaphor for the path that we choose when we walk away from God. You know, when we think, hey, he's holding out on me, there's something better out there, I can have more fulfillment. I've done that. You know, and you get on this path, and it just goes from worse to worse to worse. Uh eventually ending up in degradation, humiliation, self-destruction. But thankfully, a lot of times when we're on that path, most of us hit some kind of bottom. You know, where we say, hey, we've had enough. This is not what I want. This is not the life for me. Things were better with God. Felt like this, like this young man does. You know, I'm gonna die if I if I don't find a way back home. So when he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, at home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger. You know, so he finally hit bottom. And he comes up with a plan. He's gonna ask his dad to hire him as a servant. And he comes up not with just a plan, but with a speech. Have you ever done that where you come up with a speech? You know, it's uh for me, it's usually, you know, for Susan or the kids, or you know, it might be for a boss or man, we're just gonna give him this speech, you know, and you rehearse it and you're brushing your teeth, but all that's going on is this the speech in your head. And uh, well, that's the way for it is for this young man. And he's got a long time to practice this speech because he's probably weeks away. It's it's hard to travel a long ways off in that time. And so he practices the speech and he rehearses it. And he says, I'll go home to my father and I'll say, Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and I'm no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant. All right, now the Pharisees, they know what's coming. The dad is furious at his son's stupidity. He punishes him. He disowns him. And if he's lucky, gives him the lowest job on the farm. Can't you picture Jesus telling the story? You know, this group of Pharisees, you know, in their robes and their all their religious garments, and they're just hanging on every word as Jesus just builds the story and it builds and it builds, and it gets to this point. And he goes on. And so he returned home to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. But his father said to the servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with the feast. For the son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found. So the party began. The part that just blew the Pharisees' mind. The father has every right to be angry, to punish, but it's just the opposite. He runs to the young man, wraps his arms around him, kisses him, gives him a rope, gives him a new family ring. You know the speech the young man rehearsed all the way home? The dad didn't really even hear it. He was just excited that his son was home. He was already planning the party. I don't know of any better description of our father's love for you, his compassion for you. He's not mad at you. He's not fed up with you. He has not given up on you. He doesn't want to punish you. He loves you. He's proud of you. He wants to embrace you, kiss you, get you back on your feet, clothe you, celebrate with you. He just wants the best for you. He just wants you safe at home with him. And when we are, he celebrates. We're going to talk more about our Father and how Jesus describes him in a couple weeks. But who could have imagined a father like that? It's hard for me to imagine. I think that's why we talk about it so much. That's not the God I grew up hearing about. But it is the real God. It is our real Father. What prompted Jesus to tell this story is who he was hanging around with, who he was eating with, who he was friends with. When the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with people, they saw traitors and prostitutes and drunkards and gluttons. Jesus saw sons and daughters who had simply left home. Who needed a hug, who needed a robe, who needed a ring. He loved them. God loves them. Just wanted him safe back at home with him. And there's two challenges, I think, in this story for us. The first, and maybe the most difficult, is to see ourselves as God sees us. You know, it is difficult because most of us have spent so much of our lives hearing just the opposite that he's hard to please. And he's mad all the time. And you can never live up. But it's just the opposite. He sees you as pure, he sees you as holy, he sees you as blameless. And he loves you. Now, the second's a little different. When we read the story of the prodigal son, we tend to think of which uh which brother are we? Are we the selfish, wasteful younger brother, you know, or are we the selfish or the self-righteous, bitter older brother that we'll meet next week? I mean, the truth is I have been both, and I'm still both at uh at times. But the challenge in this story is not to compare ourselves and see which brother we are. The question is, can we become the father? Can we be the ones with compassion? Can we be the ones with love? Who see people not as they've become, but see who they inherently are. God's sons and God's daughters, valuable, lovable. I know we can because we're doing it. At home, where it's the most difficult, at work, at school, as God continues to change us from the inside out, helping us be more and more like Him. And as that happens, we will help more and more people find their home. Come home to God. And Jesus said, every time that happens, we ought to have a party. So if the worship team will come up, we'll party a little bit here as uh we finish up. You know, I was thinking about this uh yesterday, and and I don't know, it's just such an exciting, encouraging story to me. It's almost like I can't believe it. Um it is a story too good to be true, but but is true. And for me, it just makes me not want to leave home. You know, not even take a day trip like we sometimes do. You know, maybe I'll just go away for a little bit, it can't be that bad, but to stay home with our Father who loves us. Or maybe you just need to go home. Maybe you haven't been home. You need to reconnect with dad. It's easy to do. You know, it's just saying in our own words, in our own way, I want to be with you. I'm home. Help me. You know, and he fills us and he strengthens us and he changes us from the inside out. There's not really a prayer to repeat. You know, it's kind of like the the son. You know how he's got the speech he's got planned? And he gets home and he gets it out of his mouth, and already the Father's planning the party. Hugging him, holding him, embracing us. It's not the words that we say, it's our heart. It's our attitude of God, I want to be with you. I want you to be my father. I want you to take care of me. I appreciate you. I love you. And there it is, we're adopted as his very own sons, his very own daughters, safe with him at home. So let's stand and let's pray and get ready for this last song together. Father, I thank you for being such a wonderful, loving Father that you would adopt each of us as your very own children. We praise you for that. We thank you for it. Please help us, please stir up our hearts. Give us a desire to stay home or to come home. Show us how much you love us. Show us what you really like. We praise you and we thank you and we trust you. It's your great name we pray. Amen.