Mt. Carmel Churches | Your Story More Than A Post Part 6
What’s up roads, family, good to be with you today. Welcome to the roads church, so glad to have all of you watching online or online community as well as people right here in the auditorium. We’re in our series called your story more than a post and we’ve been talking about it for a few weeks and talking about different characters in the Bible and the purpose of this story is to remind ourselves that just like people in the Bible, our life is much more than a moment or a single event that’s happened to us in our journey in life is not about these single snapshots. You know, there’s like there’s ups and downs. It’s kind of like maybe a rollercoaster in my mind. Be able to relate your walk with God, kind of like a rollercoaster. You know, Mt. Carmel Churches there’s Times on the roller coaster you’re like,
but then there’s times Mt. Carmel Churches
it’s like you’re excited. There’s the hands free moments of your life that you’re just celebrating and everything’s fun and exciting and there’s the moments that you’re hanging on for dear life because you don’t want to be thrown out
and it’s like how many no’s? It’s like that sometimes in our life. There’s times when we’re just living high and everything’s great and there’s times where like, I don’t want to let go right now, or I might get thrown out and is part of our story and we realized that and so we’ve been jockey and through that and talking about different people in the Bible and different characters and today we’re going to talk about an individual whose story is about independence, independence, and what it means to live in independence. Have you ever known someone that was called this or maybe they’ve called you as anybody ever called you, a very independent person. Have they ever said, well, you have a very independent child,
you and that moment that they say that you’re not sure if they’re complimenting you or insulting you. You’re not sure if it’s a positive or a negative or if it’s a strength or a weakness. You’re like independent. What is that? Is that. Is that a good thing that I’m independent person? Mt. Carmel Churches Is that a bad thing? We want to talk about a little bit? Because in our life there comes a point where we begin to question whether we know more than others and if you’re a parent, it comes early in life. It comes to early in life. I’m not talking about, you know, with teenagers, I’m not talking about teenagers, I’m talking about they still have the pacifier in their mouth when they begin to decide whether they know more than you do about their life. You know this the time where your kids, you’re a certain age, you just tell them everything and they’re just like, yeah, yeah, I believe everything that comes out of your mouth is the Gospel and then there comes that time where you tell them something, they go
and you can tell. They’re trying to decide whether you know what you’re talking about or not. It happens it for all of us. He’s not just kids. We’re talking about us and God, whether we decide whether we know more than God about our lives and what to do, we can make these analogies and comparisons to kids all the time, but guess what? We’re all kids compared to God and so it’s a great way for us to relate to how God has to look at me sometimes and go check again. There’s times in parenting moments I think, Mt. Carmel Churches okay, kids, when are you going to get this? And I think at times when God’s probably St. when are you going to get this? How many times do I have to tell you? So that’s what we’re going to look at today. Let me give you the definition of independence real quick out of webster so you can see what I’m talking about.
Is it a positive or a negative? To be independent here, the definition is not subject to control by others. Self-Governing. Is that a positive or a negative? Depends on the context. Doesn’t it? Not affiliated with a larger controlling unit? Is that a compliment or an insult? Depends on how you apply it. Not requiring or relying on something else independent. Does that a good thing or is that a bad thing? Depends how you look at it, not looking to others for opinions or guidance. Mt. Carmel Churches Is that a good thing? Is that a positive? Is that a compliment? So here’s what I think. Independence is not the issue. I think independence is neutral. What we do with independence determines whether something’s good or bad. The freedom that we have, the freedom to make choices, the freedom to decide for things that is not the negative. The negative is what we do with that opportunity to choose.
Sometimes in parenting it’s easy to begin to think that if we’re having behavioral issues, then the solution is more control. Like when we got behavioral issues, so it must be an independence problem. So what I’ll do is I’ll take away all independence and I’ll bring more control and understand when they’re little, you know, you, your level of control is greater, but as they get older, the goal is to give them more and more freedom to make more and more of their own choices and therefore take more and more responsibility for their own choices. The problem is sometimes in society we have people that want to have the freedom to make choices, but don’t want to have the responsibility that goes along with that freedom or they don’t want to deal with the consequences of it, but that’s things that we’ve got to work out as we grow in letting people have freedom in our life because God the father, Mt. Carmel Churches his heart was never to control us. Our example of parenting the father in heaven, his desire was never to control you. His desire from the beginning, even looking back at Adam and eve in the garden, was to give them a choice. You have a choice of any of the tree in the garden. You need them. All of them ain’t the one you want. They all look great. Just don’t eat that one.
Which one did they want to eat out of?
Why are we the same today as we were thousands of years ago? So this is what happened. The father wanted us to have independence. He wanted us to have that freedom to choose. It was never his heart to have control. He wanted to love based relationship. So Mt. Carmel Churches I want to show a video today just at the very beginning because it sets the tone for our message today of individual story and when their journey, what is like to make choices and be responsible for those choices. I believe this story will speak to you. Speak to you maybe watching online to speak to myself. It’s a little bit of my story as well, but I want you to check this out and see if God ministers to use watch the screens.
My name’s Tim Haller and this is my story. I grew up as a minister’s child. Went to church every time the door was open and it was great growing up as a child in that house. Uh, but as I got older I thought there was a lot more fun outside. Started running around and with the wrong crowd. Obviously trying to, trying this, trying that, you know, this went on for 10 years, you know, and I got pretty good at play in church. I was still going to church at the time and I had everybody else fooled, but I hadn’t have God folder myself. Fold, you know, it’s a miserable time in your life when you, uh, try to make everybody else think you’re okay, but inside you’re dying. It’s nothing at all what I had pictured and envisioned in my mind, people having fun with it because it’s no fun.
Mt. Carmel Churches, I was one of those guys that couldn’t go out with a casual drink. I couldn’t just have a beer and I would love to just sit down and drink a beer and eat a steak at a meal or something, but I couldn’t do that. I had way too much and I didn’t know when to say no. I didn’t know when to say it was enough, was enough and met my wife, uh, about 23 years ago. She was way out of my league by the way, and I was not her type. Somehow some way she stuck it out and we were pregnant with our first child. And this was kind of my turning point. I said, I can’t let my kids grow up and see me this way. God met me right where I was at. He loved me. He brought me back to where I needed to be, put my feet on the rock and I haven’t turned back since.
I’ve really been challenging myself last couple of years to do more things for him since he’s done so much for me. And this year I was a challenged myself with being more open and involved instead of just being so complacent and sitting back and uh, you know, manny’s given me so many opportunities and I have never been one that liked to be in the limelight of any kind. But uh, he’s given me a lot of opportunities to be up and stand up for him and do things for him. And it seems like every time I turn around there’s some, another opportunity. And so that’s, that’s my story. That’s where I’m at. I just thank God and that he has met me and he’s not left me and I praised him
for the great story.
I know some of you may be able to relate with that story. I know I do in my own life, powerful story of coming up one way, choosing at some point that I’m, I’m big enough to make my own decisions and then those decisions, having consequences and finding us in places that we didn’t think we would end up being. I want to see what the Bible says about that in Luke Chapter Fifteen. If you’ve got your bibles, your sermon notes, get those out. Mt. Carmel Churches You version Bible App. I didn’t give you the normal intro, so if you get your bibles out, if you would, let’s open them up to luke chapter 15. Go happy about the Bible. Luke 15. Let’s see how tim story relates to a story of an individual in the Bible which may in turn relate to you. I believe. Now this is a story that may be familiar to a lot of you.
If you’ve been in church a while, you’ve probably heard this story. Mt. Carmel Churches, but I. and so I intentionally in this series avoided this store as I got. I’m not going to talk about this story that’s to used. And he just kept bringing me back to it because I felt like there was things that he wanted to share about this. So we’re going to touch on some things in the story now. Touched on everything in this story. There’s a lot of meat on this bone. We’re just going to chew on a little bit of it today in Luke Fifteen, verse 11. Then he said, Jesus talking a certain man had two sons, two sons. The younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided to them, his livelihood. The younger son, the younger son. I’ve got two sons.
We talked about the younger son. He doesn’t have his name, just says he’s the younger son. It’s, we don’t have a name for a character. We’ve got a story. We need a name for the character. I’ve got to have a name. I’ve got to get back and just say, hey, the younger one said you’re on your story. Had loaded talks about maybe in the heading of talking about the product sign. This is a story of the product sign. But uh, but it doesn’t say his name, Mt. Carmel Churches I mean his name wasn’t practical, you know, he didn’t come out of the womb and was mom looked at and go, hey, we’ll call him prodigal and wasn’t as name obviously. So I said, we gotta give him a name and I liked names, you know, in the stores what we’ve been doing. They start with the same letter, so they kind of go alliteration.
I like that. So then what’s a p name we can use for the product l, a p name, Peter Paul, you know, they’re okay. Then we’ve got to come up with different. So I went with Percy Percy. So today we’re gonna. Talk about product call Percy. The younger son, we don’t know the older son name. We’re not talking about him today. We can give him a name when we talk about him some day. But today we’re just going to talk about personally. So here’s what happens in verse 12. Percy comes to his dad. He says, Hey dad, I want you to give me the portion of goods that falls to me. That portion is just a word that means his share, his his part, you know his allotments, if you will, of the goods that were goods is important. You’re going to need that throughout the message. That word is a Greek word.
That means substance, property, wealth or riches, substance, property, wealth or riches. Mt. Carmel Churches he’s coming to Dan and he said that I want. I want the poor son of portion of your wealth that falls to me. Falls to me is by inheritance. It’s mined by, right? I have an inheritance company when a Jewish family that they had two sons, the Jewish room would be the oldest son would get two thirds of the inheritance. The younger son would get one third and so Percy’s like I’m only getting one third. I want to get it now. Okay. So the oldest son get to third. We’d get all the fixed assets, the land, the property, the house, all of that stuff. The Sun was just trying to cash out on what he could get moveable property. So he’s looking at his and he says, oh, I want the portion that comes to me.
So it says, the father being a good father, he divided it or he distributed it out of his livelihood. That word livelihood is a word that means life. It comes from the Greek word bios where we actually get our word biology. So it’s like the father who literally gave his children out of his life, out of his resources, everything that he had, he extended them to his kids. I’m going to divide up what I have and I’m going to give it to you, so out of himself, Mt. Carmel Churches you gotta to catch what we’re going with this out of himself. He gave to his kids. Everything that he gave to his kids came from him. It was his resources. Okay, so, and this is what he’s doing is divided them out. Our portion, if you will, related to us our portion, our is our gifts and talents and resources that are given to us by our heavenly father.
Just like the father in this story gave out of himself resources to his kids. Our heavenly father has given out of his resources to each and every one of us. All of your gifts and talents and resources that you have at your disposal is a gift from God. He’s given them to you and he’s given to each one of you. Every one of you have gifts. Everyone’s different though. Look in Romans chapter 12, it says this, having then gifts differing according to the grace given to us. Let us use them. Having then gifts differing. Everybody’s different. Look at your neighbor and say, you are different. Just to enjoy the moment of being able to say that to them, that there are different. Having them gifts that are deferring, deferring different. You’re different, you’re different or you know it’s okay to be different. I know we know that’s the right answer, but in society we do.
Mt. Carmel Churches We do. We do. We do. We do. We do. We dewy decimal system. Do we really believe that it’s okay to be different? I know it’s a rhetorical question, but I want you to think about it that you have gifts that are different from the person sitting beside you. They’re difference and they’re given from God according to the grace given to us. In other words, you have a skill set, you have talents, you have resources that are unique to you, that are given by God. That’s your portion, your portion. He’s given it to you. What are we going to do with it is the question he gives it to us, but it’s our portion, our portion of goods now liquid. It says that word goods. Remember with substance, wealth or riches, and Ephesians 1:18. It says this, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what are the riches.
That word riches is the same Greek word as goods that you may know the goods of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Here’s what God is saying. He said, I want you to know the goods that are available to you in Jesus Christ. Look at your neighbor. Tell him you got the goods. Come on, talk to him. Tell him you got the goods. You’ve got the goods online. Everything that God’s asking you to do. You’ve got the goods. I don’t think you believe it yet. Tell Yourself, I’ve got the goods, I’ve got the goods. Everything that God asks you to do, he’s equipped you to do. He just says, there’s some things you don’t know yet. This is what he fishes is talking about, that you may know the goods that are available to you, not that he will give you the goods that are available to you, that we will know them that will be aware of them. So is what happens with Percy says, fine, I just want the goods. I want everything that you’re going to give me. So when we realized that we’ve got the goods, God’s given us a portion, he’s given us the assignment, but what are we going to do with it? We need to know this. That your potential is a gift from God. What you do with it is your gift back to him.
Whatever, whatever God’s given you, that’s his gift. That’s his grace. His car, I didn’t get to say while I was in the womb, Yoga, God, make sure and give me a, b, c, d. I didn’t pick it. He picked it for me according to the grace that was given to me. Your potential, everything that you have on the inside of you, that’s a gift from God. What you do with that gift is your gift back to him. If you do nothing with it, then you’re saying that my gift doesn’t matter. I want like the because it doesn’t say having gifts differing according to the grace given to us. Let us complain about the gifts that we don’t have. Having then gifts according to the grace given us. Let us compare ourselves against everyone else’s and cfrs matters. It doesn’t say that having the gifts differing, you can want to have somebody else’s gift all day long, but you got yours, honey, you got yours, buddy.
You got to just embrace it. It’s who you are. You’re the only one you in the world, and if you’re not, then we’re missing out. This is what he’s saying. Why don’t like my gift will take it up with God. Here’s what I believe. All joking aside, if we don’t like our gift, it’s because we really don’t know it yet. We don’t know the riches yet. You haven’t seen the value yet, and it’s okay. I haven’t seen the full value of mine either, but, but when we don’t know the riches of our inheritance, the goods, we don’t have the fullness of it. Then we’ll begin to complain and say we need someone else’s has. We got to move off of that. But that’s what Percy’s dealing with. So look what happens in verse 13. So father gave his goods to Percy, verse 13, and not many days after that. So he got all of his inheritance. The younger son personally gathered all together, journeyed to a far country and there wasted his possessions with product l living
Percy chooses in this moment to gather up all this stuff. He packed up all his belongings, everything that the father had given him, all the resources, all the money. You know, whatever you gave, I don’t know what he gave Percy made, gave him cash. He may give them some valuable things. I’m not sure, but it was something he could gather up. Look what he says he does, he does with it. He packed them up and it began to leave and go to a foreign country. It’s not that uncommon in the Middle Eastern time at this time for for a young man to go to his father and say, Hey, I want my share of the inheritance. It’s not that uncommon, but there were some restrictions that you had to be able to do it as a rite of passage and you had to build it with the father’s will. The father had to okay it. If the father didn’t okay it and you didn’t have a just cause to do it, then you could be fined by the leaders of the community and slash or if you left not on good terms, then they could excommunicate you and not allow you to come back into the community. So he had to go to the father and say, Hey, Mt. Carmel Churches I want my goods. I want to. But what it was problem as it’s like saying to your dad, it’s like saying, Hey, I wish you were dead already
because all I want from you is what I can get from you. I don’t want relationship with you. I just want what you want to give me. I just want your stuff. I don’t want you.
Wow.
I know we can complain about personally, but do we ever do that with God? God, I just want what you will do for me, but I don’t want relationship with you. I just want you to bless my life. I just, I, I know you’ve given me all these gifts and talents and resources, but Percy wanted the stuff from his father without being under the, in the relationship with the father. So it’s like us saying to God, I just thank you that you give me all these gifts and talents, but, but I’ll, I’ll let you know when and where I want to use what you give me. It’s like saying to God, I appreciate all the resources you brought into my life, but I’ll let you know if I’m going to give any back to you.
Just file. It makes it feel better when you think about it. You know, Mt. Carmel Churches just like you’re talking about something that I know God you brought me this great job and great income, but I’ll let you know if I want to give any money back into your kingdom. I’m just saying what Percy had a problem with. He was allowing himself to be the ruler. So he said, I’m going to go. I’m going to get outta here. I’m gonna. Get away from the control of the father. We can be tempted to think that being under the leadership of the father is bondage and being outside of there is freedom. Remember what Tim said in his testimony. He was raised up in church, raised this way, but he said, I kept thinking there’s something else out there that’s going to be more fun is what personally thought. Raised up in this great home, got inheritance, got resources.
You know what? I Bet I know what to do with my gifts and talents more than my dad does. I’m going to go, I’m going to get out of here. I’m going to go a journey into a far country. You know, we can either experience the world with God or we can experience it on our own. I found in my own story, it’s a much more pleasant to experience the world in a relationship with God than an experience the world outside of a relationship with God, and this is what he’s finding out. A notice of father lets him go. He just lets him go. He gives him stuff and it gives him his stuff and lets him go. Why? Because God’s given us free will is giving you the freedom. You can do it because he understands that his son was going to realize that freedom doesn’t come outside of the father.
Freedom only comes within the father, that he was going to exchange a light, easy yoke for a heavy burden yoke. He was going to exchange one gracious, loving master for a thousand vicious vicious tyrants that we’re going to run his life. This is what happens when we get outside of God and this is what he’s test, so he wasted his possessions on protocol living his possessions. He wasted his possessions. That’s the same word for riches and goods that we’ve seen already in the story. He wasted his possessions, so he wasted his goods. He wasted his gifts from the father on product delivery. What does product living mean? The word product means lacking. Restraint means excessive, senseless, reckless living to live without thinking, to live without thinking senseless, just reckless, doing whatever, but Mt. Carmel Churches it says he wasted it and this word is very important, I think, for the story because what happens, we can begin to look at Percy and think that’s them.
That’s somebody else. It’s not me. I’m a good person. I’m not per se because we can take practical living is going out and blowing all your money on prostitutes and drugs. That’s what proceed it. That’s what the older brother at the end of the story accuses him of doing. Not knowing what he did, but he just assumed it was something worse than what he was doing. Oh, I got more time for that, but I got to move on. See, it’s easy for us to pick and choose what sends that we think are bad and what funds things we think are allowable anyway, so here’s where he is. He’s. He’s a product of living. He wasted it. Here’s what the word wasted means. I thought this was so good. The word wasted means to squander too, spread thin or scatter gradually vanished. Mt. Carmel Churches To spend foolishly and to no purpose, to spend foolishly and to no purpose.
I believe product of living is this. Here’s what I’m going to break it down. It’s living recklessly, incensus, late on a bunch of different things with no definite purpose. It’s living with no goals. It’s living with no strategy and living with no purpose in life. It’s like saying, God’s job is to give us our gifts, but it’s my job to decide what I do, that it’s. That’s the idea of product living. It’s to waste it, to live her life with no purpose. What’s your purpose? Mt. Carmel Churches What’s your goal? What are you wanting to accomplish? What is God doing in your life? This is practical. Living. Practical living is not just the ugliest sin that we can think about. Practical living is recklessly trying to do a little bit of this little bit of that. Whatever we want, we’re scattered. Then we’re using on a bunch of different things, trying to find our purpose, but we don’t have a common purpose in our heart.
God says, you get your purpose from me instead of fishing for it a little bit here a little bit. They’re giving your heart a little way. They’re a little way there, all the way we’re scattered. Then he’s saying, no protocol living is when you’re living a life with no purpose, and this is what he’s trying to do with Percy. So he’s the beginning. He say, you’re wasting it. You’re wasting it. So verse 14, go to the next part. So Mt. Carmel Churches when he had spent all there, arose, a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want. So he spent all of his dad’s possession. All of his dad’s good to use up. All the money began to be in want. Mt. Carmel Churches That word began just means a process of what happened in the natural. We could say that Percy spin all of his money and it began to get behind on his bills.
He ran out of cash, so he started to get into debt. He started getting in a bind financially. He’s like, he can’t. He can’t pay his bills. He can’t buy groceries. He’s getting in a bind. We can say he began to be in want, and this is what happens when we began to put ourselves in a place where we’re not connected to the father. You realize that you can. You have to have a relationship with finances, that you have to have income that is greater than your outflow. I know this is a foreign concept to people sometimes in the world that you cannot spend more than you make. You’re not going to flourish and live if you’re spending more than you’re bringing in. Why are you being sole literal about that? Because it is so misunderstood in our own circle that people spend beyond their means.
Amen. Amen. So this is what Percy was doing. That’s just a natural. Okay, who’s spinning? So let’s talk a spiritual. He had a relationship with the father and the father had poured into him and given him resources, but once he disconnected with the father, there was no more input into his spiritual life and you can only go so long on yesterday’s relationship with God. You can only travel so long in your walk with God based on what God told you yesterday, three months ago, three years ago, 10 years ago, people walk around, try and have a fresh relationship with God and they haven’t heard a fresh word from God. In four weeks, we’ve got to have it. This is why he said, let me give you your daily bread is one man who came from heaven. Every day you get that manner. It’s only good for today.
You got to come back and believe me to supply you fresh bread tomorrow. This is what we got to have in our relationship, but personally had cut off his relationship with God and he was trying to live on yesterday’s relationship with God and after a while it runs out. After a while, if you don’t have an ongoing fresh relationship with God, things of God began to grow dry. Yes, you got to have income. You got to have inflow, and this is what happens with Percy. He, he’d, he begins to be in want of you, gets to be in what? Mt. Carmel Churches so then what happens is severe famine comes into the land. What does famine? Famine is a scarcity of food, scarcity of food, so what’s your relationship with God has kicked off and this, this Bible, his word. This is our food. This is our daily bread.
So I had to pull out of a relationship with God and Mt. Carmel Churches his word. When I stopped reading his word, I stopped feeding on him and I unplugged from that relationship, that daily relationship in God’s word. Guess what? A famine can come into my life and all of a sudden there’s a scarcity of food to give me strength spiritually to walk out my relationship with God. Well, Mt. Carmel Churches how come I’m just not feeling very good? When’s the last time you spent some time in your Bible? I really don’t have a lot of time for my Bible, my, but my schedule’s really busy.
Come on.
We don’t miss many meals
on
I Mt. Carmel Churches It was spend five, six days fasting without food. You don’t have to raise your hand because I know it’s not happening very often, but how many times will we go five, six days without spending time with God next Sunday. I’ll get that next Sunday like what do you do? You go six days without eating, but we go six days sometimes without eating and our relationship with God and wonder why we’re in a weakened state began to be in one that we’re being one also means inferior, mediocre or lower status. Here’s what I believe God’s saying, that whenever personally begin to unplug from his relationship with God, it led him into an inferior state of living. When we unplugged from our relationship with our father, we’re going to live in an inferior state. It’s less than your best. It’s less than what God wants you to experience in life.
We are. We are not at our best when we’re not connected to God. When Chad is running the show, I’m in an inferior state than when God is running the show. When I’m calling the shots on how I deal with people, it’s an inferior form of dealing with people. When I’m parenting my kids, if I’m not connected to how the father wants me to do, it’s an inferior way of doing. If you’re not connected to the father, your relationship with your spouse, Mt. Carmel Churches it’s going to be an inferior relationship and what happens when we get away from God, he will lead us. It will lead us down to an inferior way of looking at living and look what happens. Look what happens in the next verse when we get into an inferior state, less than God’s best for our life. Verse Fifteen, then he went and joined himself.
Everybody say joined, joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. Now you got to know a little bit about swine to catch this. I was raised in Edwards County. I’ll be in Illinois and we love to have some pigs in Albia. We have what we call port day. Every year you got dairy day in North City and all the different day. We had port day. We loved our pigs, a lot of pig farmers, so obviously the Jews who did not like pigs. This was like a degree. They were not from Albion. They didn’t recognize the beauty of pigs like we did, but no. All joking aside for the Jews, working with pigs was the most degrading thing that they could ever do there. We’re not allowed to raise pigs. There were not allowed to be around pigs.
That’s why they don’t eat pork. To this day, they’re not to be anything to do with pigs. They were unclean. Right? So now he. When he got in this inferior state, look what happened to him. Here’s what we got to be careful. When we get disconnected from God and we start living in inferior life, if we’re not careful, we will join ourselves to the wrong people. He got himself in an inferior state and because he was in an inferior state, his discernment was inferior. His judgment was inferior. I remember one time speaking of independence, I remember going to my dad and having this conversation about when I thought I was old enough to not have to go to church anymore and I’ve worked myself up. I’d really pump myself up and coached myself up. I’d had arguments in my head, justified myself. Yeah. I’m a man. Yeah. Was about Tom. I’m the, yeah, do it. So I got up the nerve and it said, hey, uh, data won’t talk to you about something. Okay. Hey, uh, I think, uh, I think I’m old enough to, uh, to decide some things for myself. Say, okay.
Like, what? Well, I just think, you know, I think I’m old enough thing, you know, if I, if I, uh, you know, if I know, if I, uh, I’m just thinking, you know, that, you know, maybe not all the time, you’ll, some of the time I think I, Mt. Carmel Churches I think, um, you know, I think I’m going to place in my, you know, I think Mt. Carmel Churches, I’m, I’m thinking, I think I’ve got some understanding, I think. I think you know what, there’s certain times, not all the time that I think, I think, I think, think, think, think, think. I think. I think I don’t have to go to church all the time if I don’t want to.
Okay. Okay.
Mt. Carmel Churches recent, I’m bringing that up to this point in the story is because at that point in my life I was not connected to the father the way I was supposed to be connected. So my idea of my good judgment was tainted by the position I was with the father. So my independence was not the problem. My Dad gave me my new pens all. Alright. Okay. Big Boy. This was older. This wasn’t like I was 12. Don’t get any ideas, any of my kids. That’s all came to the place we. Okay. Let’s see how that works out for you. I could take you on a four year journey of how that worked out for me a lot now where I ended up with pigs
waldern with pigs joining myself to people I shouldn’t have been joined to, but I knew what I thought I could do. I like Percy thought I was pretty smart, but I didn’t realize that sin will take me places that I never thought I would go and it would cost me more than I was ever willing to pay. That’s where personally found himself. He’s. He’s amongst these pigs and verse 16, he would. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate and no one gave him anything. Mt. Carmel Churches, he found himself so desperately, so hungry. He’s broke. He has no money, and he’s literally feeding hogs and cows garbage. It’s just trash. It’s just husks. They’re called pods. It’s food that only cattle and and a whore and swine would eat. So Percy is eating pods, but this is what happens when you get so desperate, you’re willing to do things you never would have done before. So Percy’s reach, rock bottom, but how many nos? This is about your walk with God. Sometimes your darkest moment is right before things begin to turn around. When Percy finally got so desperate that I would eat pots, Mt. Carmel Churches something’s gotta change. He looked around him. Look at verse 17, but when he came to himself, he came to himself. This was PRC,
some pussy. The son, when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare and I perish with hunger? He came to himself. He remembered in that moment a most of the pods and the pigs, and he says, wait a minute. This is not who I am. Mt. Carmel Churches I remember who I am and I remember whose I am. I remember my father in that moment. We don’t know how long it had been. He could have forgotten about his father. He wasn’t thinking about his father, hadn’t bothered talking, thought about him in a long time, but in that moment at the rock bottom, all the sudden, the one who came to his mind was his father.
The moment he said, wait a minute, I remember who I was. I remember time with my father when I was with my father. Oh, Mt. Carmel Churches let me think back. Let me think. Let me think back to my time, but my father. Oh, those were good days. Oh, remember? Remember when we gave the servants even the scraps from our table, you remember that? Oh, I remember. I remember the clothes I wore. I remember where I was. I remember my daddy talking to me. I remember, remember, and any open eyes and look at where he is. How many of you have found yourself in a place in life that you looked around and you said, this is not who I am. This is not where I want to stay. He came to himself and he, verse 18, I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I’ve sinned against heaven before you and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me like one of your hired servants. So he has this prepared speech, right? This K, alright, this is not who I am. So Mt. Carmel Churches now I’m going to go back to my father, but I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy to go back to him. I’ve been playing. I’ve been messing around with the pigs are ruined. All the resources, everything that God’s given me, I’ve wasted it. So I’m going to go back to my father and because remember what I said in the beginning, if a son comes back in that rebellious state, the community has a right to veto his reentry into the community and banned him. So he’s going with that risk that I’m going to go back and I’m going to face all the people that I’ve done wrong and look where he prepares his speech. I’ve sinned against heaven before you got synagis you and against heaven and before you speaking about his father.
Repentance is good. We need to know where we are and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hearts serves. How many have ever prayed this prayer? When you’re going back to God, I’m just no longer worthy. God. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy to be a found myself in a mess. I’ve screwed up a blown it have really made a mistake. This is awful and I’m not even worthy and so I’m not even going to engage in worship because I’m not worthy. I’m not even gonna. Go back to church because I’m not worthy people to. People want to think about me. If I walk in the doors of a church, what are people going to think about?
I’m not worthy to walk in. If I walk into the church, Mt. Carmel Churches the roof is going to caveat. I can’t go back to church. People know who I am. They know what I’m done. I’m not worthy to come back. I’m not worthy to go.
This is what he said, so he prepares. This is what he’s going to say. Verse Twenty, and he arose and came to his father. Mt. Carmel Churches I underlined the word arose in my Bible because I believe it’s relevant to this part of the story. The word arose means to stand up, to rise up and open of authority
and overthrow it or act in opposition to its demands. Let me say it again because I want to say something here that’s very important to stand up, to rise up in open defiance of authority and overthrow it or act in opposition. Opposition to its demands. We have to choose to get up from where we are in open defiance and the authority and overthrow any feeling that tells me I don’t have a right to get up from where I am and go back to the father. We’re going to have feelings and tell us you don’t have a right. You don’t deserve it. You can’t go back. It’s too late. You’ve done too much. Been in open defiance some money that has to have the courage to get up from that place and say, I’m going back to the father. You’re going to have to have rebellious defiance over the authority of every feeling. I’m telling you. Feelings will try and paralyze you and say you can’t. You know what you’ve done. You can go back now. You’ve wasted too late. You spent all you’ve had. You’ve blown it. You can go back. Mt. Carmel Churches You can’t get back with right with God. Now you’ve been back. You went back six or seven times. It’s time to quit these too late for you. It’s open defiance. You’ve got to get up, stand up and say, I’m not going to stay where I am
going back with. The devil tried to get you to stay there. He will keep whispering in your ear and you can’t get up, but you get up, you gotta get up. Someone tells somebody, get up, get up, get up from where you are.
Get up. You gotta. Rise up. Open defiance to your. I don’t feel like it’s kind of just feel ms Dot Phillips. I know you feel it in open defiance to those feelings. Get up and go after God’s what? Tido does. I just feel terrible if I get an repent and walk back to God, I just don’t feel like I could do it and fail too many times I just feel just feel so dark. I get what you feel, but at some point there’s got to be that defiance to your feelings. There’s got to be that fight in you that says, I’m going to get up and I’m going, I’m going. I’m not going to live with the pigs anymore. I’m going to cut off. I’ve joined to the wrong people and I’m going to cut it off and I’m going to go back to the father. Mt. Carmel Churches I’m not going to live in inferior life anymore. I’m not going to Walter in lowliness. I’m going to come back to the righteous places, a son or daughter of God. I’m not going to compromise my convictions anymore. I’m getting up from where I am. This is what God’s saying to us. Get up, get up and go back.
So he comes back and runs to him. Look at verse 20, but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him, but he’s still a great, a great distance away, a great way off his father saw him, his father saw him. Can I say to someone watching? No matter how far away from God you, he sees you as I see you.
Are you still a great bar? It wasn’t that God sees you once you come into the church and get right, oh, now I see you. Okay, then I’m going to pay 10. While you’re still a great way off, I see you, I see you. I want you. I’m after you. I love you. Great way off. Well, Mt. Carmel Churches Chad, I need to get my life together and then I’ll start coming to church. No, come to church with your life, a mess. Come to the church with your life all jacked up and join the rest of us. Why? Because we’re not looking for our perfection. We’re looking to the perfect one, Jesus, and he says, well, he’s still a four way far off.
Good land. This plane. He says he had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him, Mt. Carmel Churches there’s so much here that the sun shyly coming back. I’m not worthy. The father barrels through his resistance,
grabs him, gives him a big bear hug. When you come back to God, the flesh will tell you, religion will tell you gotta ease your way back in. You got to pay a little bit of a penance. You know you got to work. You’ve got little probation, Mt. Carmel Churches period. You gotta earn your way back into the good graces. Marg glory. The good grace of God died on the Cross for me 2000 years ago. I don’t have to earn anything back. I don’t have to earn it back. You come running in. Jesus is like, Hey, give me some sugar. Boy, sway does,
and I know I know in ourselves. We want to keep the distance in two, we feel better, but God says, you gotta get up out of your feelings and receive because it’s not about your end. It’s about his and his intentions. Here was the son’s intentions. His intentions were, I’m not worthy. Let me be a servant, but his intentions were overridden by the father’s intentions, so kiss theme and the sunset. Danny’s son starts into a speech and the sunsets, a father, remember it’s almost word for word. He starts it out the same way. In Verse Twenty One father, I’ve sinned against heaven and in your sight, so he gets out of the bear hug of his dad. He says, oh, okay. Yeah, my speech. He probably had it written on his hand. A father, I’ve sinned against heaven and in your sight, I’m no longer worthy to be called your son, and he’s getting ready to say the next part, which is make me like one of your hired servants. He’s getting ready to say that, and his dad interrupting the father interrupts him, but the father said to his servants, Mt. Carmel Churches hugging the son of father, I’m, I’m no longer worthy to be your son. Uh, uh, make me,
hey, bring me. Bring the best robe. He’s not even talking to his son. He’s ignoring him because everything that’s coming out of his mouth is Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah. I don’t care what you say. The fact that you’re here is all that matters to me. I don’t care what all you’ve got to say. I just want to be with you. So he says to his servants, he’s not talking to his son. He says to a service, hey, bring me a robe. Not just any robots V, but if you’ll study this out, it’s the best robe in the house. It’s, it’s the robe of righteousness of Jesus Christ that you can take off our filthy garments and put on a robe of righteousness. So, Mt. Carmel Churches so you said bring the best robe and there’s a dead. By the way, as I was saying, I’m not worthy. Oh, and I know I’m bringing a ring. Bring a ring and put on his finger and ring. And just because he likes bling, I don’t know. It’s because it was the signet ring of the family so that he was saying to a son, nobody going to be a servant in my house. You’re a son and I’m putting authority right back into you as a son or a daughter in my life.
So this again, I’m not worthy.
Oh Hey. Make sure you put some sandals on his feet. Bring something new. Air Jordans I’ve been waiting for into giving had been bought.
Form is gonna. Look good on him. Mt. Carmel Churches Proud of him looking at his feet. I’m going to restore righteousness to him. Mt. Carmel Churches I’m going to restore him. Tour through the feet are shod with the gospel of peace. Some will put him. I’m going to restore his walk with me, a minute, rice, great place, and he said, a dead. Really?
Oh, and by the way, bring them and bring the fatted calf.
We’re going to celebrate. The Sun’s intentions was to grovel. His way in the father’s intentions is to celebrate your way. Celebrate you. The Bible says, all of heaven rejoices over. One person who repents, all of heaven rejoices all of heaven rejoices he says in the last verse, he says, Look, my son, my son who was dead is alive again. He was lost and is found, and they began to be married. My son, my daughter was dead there now alive. I believe something very powerful when you’ve said to his servants, here’s something for the church, but I got to this. He said to the servants as an example, he wasn’t talking to her son because I believe it’s a message to the servants of God. Have an example of how we’re supposed to treat a person who’s coming back to the father. The son comes groveling back and of the servants being ready. They’re like, oh, they know what proceed did. All person’s gonna. Get it now.
First is going to get it. Come on, whip him. Lord whipped him, Lord. Come on. You got the bed. Beauty. Do something. Hey, you gotta pay for what he did. So what’s going to happen? I just can’t wait to see what he’s going to chew him out. Mt. Carmel Churches Oh, it’s going to be good service. Bring the road.
Bring roll for Percy Percy to deserve the role. Percy divert deserves a beating.
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, whoa. He’s a father. You don’t get the ring. He’s got to earn his way back in. It’s an example to us. So when someone comes running back to Jesus, it’s for us to remember. Mt. Carmel Churches It’s the father’s job to determine what they get and what status he gives them. It’s our job to welcome them and point them to him and let him take care of their issues.
Thank you so much for joining us today. We are so honored that we get to be a part of what God is doing in and through your life. If you would like for us to partner with you in prayer, you can click the link in the description below. If this ministry has impacted you and you would like to partner with us to continue to reach others, you can click the link in the description below to give. Now, Mt. Carmel Churches if you’re new here or are you like this sermon, consider subscribing to our youtube channel. You can also hear the road sermons on our website and our podcast. Thanks for watching.