Come Home: The Story of the Lost Son

``The father is like, forget all your speech, forget all your thinking, give him a robe, give him a ring, give him the sandals. And, all those things were where they were symbols to represent the status that son had in his father's household. He was restoring his status as his son under his roof. Why does he do this? Well, he tells his servants, verse 24, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So, they began to celebrate and that's why the lost son was found. He was made alive again and that calls for a celebration. [00:45:37] (42 seconds)  #SonRestored

He lets us do our own thing. But, as we do our own thing, God is not forgetting us. He is hopeful with us. He is patient with us. He is faithful to us in terms that he's not going to give up on us. And, he moves with us, waiting for us to come back home. And when we do that, he's waiting with open arms, ready to restore you to the status of son and daughter, ready to celebrate you because of the fact that you came home. So, come home. [00:49:01] (27 seconds)  #WaitingArmsOfGod

He just wants us to come home. He just wants us to repent. He just wants us to turn from the the broken life we wanna live and back to the life that he has for us. This is what God is really like. And when that happens, what we receive on the other side is forgiveness and grace and joy and life. This is who God is and this is what God thinks of you. And so, the one thing is for you or your neighbor or your friend or anyone watching online is this, is just come home. This is the just come home. [00:47:41] (31 seconds)  #ForgivenessAndGrace

But, he practices it and he gives this speech, but then the father just interrupts his speech. He's like, forget the stupid speech. Next verse, But the father said to his servants, 'Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it, let's have a feast and celebrate. I don't know about you guys, I don't see anger here. I don't see embarrassment here. I don't see this religious mentality of like, the son has to do something to please his father. [00:45:03] (34 seconds)  #GraceNotPerformance

Why do we have this tendency to run away from God? Why do we think that we can do better on our own? Because oftentimes, what we do is we often think of religion as this, if God is is real, if there's a God, then if you do right, he'll be he'll be good with you. He's cool with you. That's how we think so often. If I just do the right things, I behave the right way, God will be good with me. But then, we get into the situation where we go, you know what? I don't think I can do it God's way very well. [00:32:04] (26 seconds)  #StopRunningFromGod

Oftentimes, we think we're in charge, we have everything figured out. Although, you and I, we we think that we can just make the right decisions for ourselves and we'll be fine. But then, what happens is, is something outside of our control in this situation of famine, it hits us and then we realize something's really wrong and what we can do is one of two things. We can blame everything on the outside circumstances or we can own what's happening on the inside. You see, in this situation with the younger son, what was really broken in him was not the famine. [00:27:28] (33 seconds)  #CrisisRevealsYou

He'd been hoping. And I I don't know how you guys picture it, but here's how I picture this. This this father, he has his property, he has his estate, he has his land, he has his house, whatever it may be. And I just for some reason, I just picture this long road. And every day, the father goes out to the the front porch or whatever it is and he just looks down that road wondering, is today the day my son's gonna come back? Is today the day that I'll see him walking from a distance? Is today the day that he finally returns home? [00:42:50] (29 seconds)  #WaitingFather

And, my encouragement for all of us is to not blame what's happening on the outside, but to look inwardly and go, oh, there's something wrong and broken inside of me. I better address this. This is why I think it's so important that Jesus references and mentions that a famine hits. Because he easily could have told a story and said, listen, son went and spent his money on wild living, he ran out and that was it. But, he throws this little tidbit about the famine because it shows there are things that happen that are outside of our control and expose this stuff in us. [00:29:10] (33 seconds)  #OwnYourBrokenness