Embracing Home: The Prodigal Son's Journey

"One of the things that we try to do is get together and experience what it means to be home for Christmas. For our family, this year is going to be way different. So for like 30 years, Dawn and I celebrated 30. 30 years of marriage this year, so yes, we are old. Thank you." [00:02:07] (21 seconds)


"The beautiful part of this story, though, is this. It paints a picture about how God feels about his children. It paints a picture of how God feels about his creation, about all people, all men, all women, children, all of us, all of his creation. That means you. It means the person sitting next to you. It means the person in front of you and behind you." [00:09:05] (26 seconds)


"You can see in his expression, love and forgiveness, mercy and grace. You can see it in the way he is standing with his arms draped over his son, his open hands resting on the back of him. His lost son. Rembrandt does his best to tell this story through art. And Jesus does it. He tells the story of God's love and mercy and forgiveness through the parable of the lost son." [00:11:53] (33 seconds)


"Rembrandt understood what it meant to go from having everything to having nothing. And he understood what it meant to need the love, the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness, the acceptance of his father. We talked about in previous weeks how we can identify with both the sons in the story. Maybe there's been a point in time in your life when you wandered off and you did some things you shouldn't have done and you needed the father's love to welcome you back." [00:13:14] (25 seconds)


"You see, when the son leaves and takes his inheritance, the Bible tells us that while he's still coming, while he's coming home from afar off, his father sees him and runs to him. Well, how does he know he's coming, folks? You think the kid sent an email ahead of time? A text, a snap, right? No, the reason the father sees him coming is because he's looking for him. He's looking for him probably every day." [00:14:05] (27 seconds)


"The father in this story, even though he was rejected, even though he was discarded, his son is missing, he's gone, he's lost. And where do we find the father? Looking for his son. And when he sees him coming from afar off, he doesn't write a big speech about how he told him so. Give him the big lecture and all the rules that have to apply now that you're back." [00:15:03] (23 seconds)


"This is how the father treats his lost son when he returns. Kills the fatted calf and throws a big old party. See, I think this is perhaps the most important aspect of this entire story. And that is the celebration that the father throws when his lost son is found. Because earlier in this chapter, if you're familiar with Luke 15, there are three stories in this chapter." [00:15:34] (22 seconds)


"And in the first story of the sheep, we find a shepherd who goes out when he's missing one of his hundred sheep. The other 99, he leaves them. And he goes in search of the one, and when he finds it, you know what the story tells us? That he throws a party, he celebrates, he tells all of his friends, come and celebrate with me because I have found my lost sheep." [00:15:56] (19 seconds)


"And what I want you to understand today is this, that in this story, the father is God. Jesus is talking about God when he tells the story. In the story of the shepherd, God is the shepherd and we are the sheep. In the story of the lost coin, God is the woman and we are the coin. And God searches and searches and searches and waits and waits and waits, longing for us to come home and to be found." [00:17:06] (27 seconds)


"Whatever you need today, wherever you sit and whatever your need is, my hope and our prayer for you is that you will in some way experience the love, the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness, and the acceptance of the Father. And that together, one day, we will be able to rejoice and celebrate with you when what has lost, that's been lost, will be found." [00:21:13] (24 seconds)