Save The Date! | Crossland Community Church

This see his thinking changed that led to a direction change, and this is the best definition of repentance in the entire bible. Repentance is a change of thinking that leads to a change of direction, but the direction is critically important. Right? He didn't go from pig slop to Buddha. You can't go from drugs and alcohol to Mohammed. You can't go from sexual immorality to Confucius. You can't go from a prosperity mindset to new age thinking. [00:23:54] (35 seconds)  #RepentChangeDirection

And that's why I will tell you till Jesus comes back. He did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. Was this guy bad? Of course, he was bad. But was that his problem? No. His problem was he was dead. And now through repentance and returning, changing his mind and changing his direction, he's now alive. [00:34:08] (19 seconds)  #FromDeadToAlive

Jesus is twisting this story because he's like, do you really understand the nature of the father? You think he's a stoic being that stands on the porch and waits for you to come back? That's not the god of heaven. Because the minute that you change your mind about him and change your direction towards him, you better watch out because he's gonna come after you and he's gonna get you. He's gonna darn near tackle you. And as soon as he gets there, listen, he throws his arms around him and kiss this kid who's been slinging pig slop. [00:30:02] (33 seconds)  #FatherRunsToYou

You can't be so bad that he won't receive you. You can't be so good that you don't need him. Every human being needs to come to the point where you gotta ask yourself, am I going to accept the invitation and be at the banquet? Or am I gonna end up on the front porch? Because the front porch ultimately leads to an eternity in hell. [00:41:46] (26 seconds)  #ChooseTheBanquet

And you think that my father is supposed to treat humanity fairly. Well, that'd be the last thing you'd ever want. You don't want God to treat you fairly. You want him to treat you mercifully. Both of them needed God's mercy. You don't need fairness from God. You need mercy. You need grace. You need acceptance, not fairness. [00:39:27] (26 seconds)  #MercyNotFairness

And Jesus now, that's fourteen, and fifteen is pretty much gonna answer the primary reason why some people do accept and the reason why others don't accept, and it's probably not, and he's gonna teach the Pharisees what even we think today. So this is a simple big idea. The people at the party are the ones who repent. It's pretty simple. Repentance is accepting the invitation. [00:06:57] (25 seconds)  #RepentanceIsAcceptance

And what's dangerous, if you think about it is, you can be really, really, really close to the house and really, really, really far from God's heart. And you can be really, really, really, really far from the house and actually have a better understanding of the father's heart. The question here is not which son are you. Nothing to do with it. Because we know one thing. There's a lot of people that are somewhere in the middle. These are the two extremes. This is not about which son are you. This is all about do you know the father. [00:37:22] (41 seconds)  #CloseYetFarFromGod

And that is a huge mind shift. If you're lost and you have yet to accept Christ, you have to understand something, the heart of God towards you. He's not mad at you because you broke the rules. He's already crushed his son for that. He's heartbroken because you sinned against him. This is a you're you're you're hurting his heart, not breaking his rules. [00:25:55] (28 seconds)  #SinHurtsGodsHeart

If I change my mind and direction, he'll receive me. And I'm gonna go back and confess something to him. And what's interesting in this kid's confession is that he knows it isn't just that I have sinned. I've made mistakes. It's that I've sinned against. He understands that he hasn't just broke the rules. What he's done is broke the father's heart. [00:25:29] (25 seconds)  #RepentanceAcknowledgesHurt

And the reason I think it's dropped right where it is, and he teaches this when he does, is because while you can see in Luke's gospel, everything around him has changed. What he wanted everybody to know, that doesn't mean God has. The very attitude of God that sent Christ is still the attitude that God has regardless of how people treat Christ. [00:03:37] (22 seconds)  #GodsAttitudeRemains

And if you're gonna sit there and try and logically figure out why God so loved the world, you're never gonna get there. Because there's no logical answer to what he did. It's because he so loved the world, not logic, love. And God, his nature is such that all he's longing for you to do is to accept the invitation of Jesus Christ, to repent of your sins. [00:41:19] (26 seconds)  #LoveNotLogic

Do you really understand the nature of god that he literally will allow you to throw your life away if you want to? That if you wanna take all the possibility and potential that he's given you, the blessings and the prosperity that he has poured out on you, and live as though he doesn't exist, he's going to let you. But you have to understand the consequences of that when it comes to the great banquet. [00:18:41] (29 seconds)  #GodLetsYouChoose

Okay? So now you see why my big idea was people end up in the party because they repent. The the response to the invitation is simple. It's repentance. And you're gonna see a picture of what that looks like in a second. The reason why the Pharisees were never going to, if you will, end up at the banquet is because they don't feel like they have anything to repent of. [00:14:24] (26 seconds)  #RepentToJoinTheParty

I serve the Lord. I'm doing it all for the Lord. And the Lord's like, no. You're doing it for you. Because if you think slaving is the same thing as serving, you don't know me. What did you think? Hard work was your way to get into heaven? Hard work is not how you accept the invitation. You gotta repent. [00:36:40] (22 seconds)  #ServingNotSlaving

This is exactly what God does. He's the one who initiates. I'll go out on the porch. See, there's no real difference between a son who's in the pig slop and a son who's on the porch. No difference at all. You're either in the party or you're not. And the older brother, he's on the porch, and the father understands. Listen. I want you in the party. I don't want you on the porch because the porch is not the party. The pigs off is not the party. [00:35:25] (27 seconds)  #PorchIsNotTheParty

If you wanna understand the bible, okay, in very simple terms, the old testament is save the date, the new testament is the invitation. God was projecting for four thousand years till the coming of Christ, the Christ was coming. And he so prophetically, we saw this so many times early in the gospel of Luke because it's ultimately written about fulfillment to produce confidence in the future coming of Christ. [00:05:37] (26 seconds)  #OldTestamentSaveTheDate

And it's almost I I shudder when I say it, but I'm say it anyway. He's extraordinarily irresponsible with his grace. I don't know what else to tell you. He operates in ways we would never conceive Because he's God and he knows what he's doing and and he gets to do what he wants to do. [00:40:57] (22 seconds)  #GodsExtravagantGrace