Come Home: From Numbness to Compassion

What happens when the people who know better don't do better? What happens when God's people are inconsistent? Does our unfaithfulness cancel out God's faithfulness? And Paul's answer, it's it's pretty fierce. Not at all. Let let God be true and every human being a liar is what he says. Or to say a little bit more plainly, God does not become flaky because we become inconsistent. You cannot ungod God. Your coldness does not make him cold. [01:28:45] (45 seconds)  #GodIsFaithfulAlways

God is not faithful because we are easy to love. He's faithful simply because he is good. But, again, don't twist it because Paul knows someone's gonna try and twist it. Your sin is not doing God a favor. Your hardness is not helping the kingdom. Your numbness is not neutral. Our sin does not make God better. It reveals how good he already is. The cross did not mean the evil was good. The cross means God is so good that even evil could not win. [01:47:52] (56 seconds)  #GraceRevealsGod

That's what happens when our hearts become numb. We stop seeing people the way the father does. Who we call interruptions, god calls image bearers. What we see as bad choices, god sees as bondage. Don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean that sin isn't serious. The pigpen was real. The far country did damage to that younger son. But grace does not minimize sin. Grace tells the truth about sin and still makes a way home. So if my holiness does not make me more merciful, it might not be holiness at all. It might be pride wearing church clothes. [01:43:00] (67 seconds)  #HolinessProducesMercy

Because sometimes, god's judgment looks like letting us have exactly what we asked for because we thought it would save us. Sometimes, god lets us walk into the far country is what the text says where the sun went with exactly what we demanded to have so in order that we can discover that it cannot give us what we thought it would. So this younger son takes what he has and leaves. He goes off to the far country, and he squanders it. [01:32:48] (42 seconds)  #DistanceIsntFreedom

And that's a terrifying realization to me because most of us don't think spiritual danger looks like that. We think we think danger looks like leaving. It looks like scandal. We think danger looks like visible rebellion. But sometimes spiritual danger looks like being able to explain mercy while withholding it. Sometimes spiritual danger looks like singing about the amazing grace we have in Jesus while resenting the person who receives it. [01:27:48] (43 seconds)  #MercyNotJustSermons

Knowing the truth matters. Being in this house matters. Growing up in a Christian environment matters. But here's the warning. It's possible to be entrusted by the word of God and not be transformed by it. It's possible to physically hold scripture in your hands, read it, and resist what it's actually trying to tell you, what it's trying to do in your heart. It's possible to know the language of God and not share the heart of God. [01:27:06] (41 seconds)  #KnowledgeWithoutTransformation

He's hungry. He's ashamed. He's he's empty. Then Jesus says in verse 17, when he came to his senses the phrase matters because sin, it's a type of insanity. Sin convinces us that distance from the father is freedom. We move away from him, and then we don't actually get what we want, and we keep doing it over and over again. Sin convinces us that the far country, whatever that is for you, will give us identity, pleasure, control, and comfort when that is far from the truth. [01:33:45] (45 seconds)  #ComingToSenses

God has not become less holy because we become casual. God has not become less merciful because our hearts have become hardened. God is, has been, and will always be God. And in some ways, that's very comforting, and it is. But it's also confronting. Because if if God remains true, then I cannot use my inconsistency to redefine him. His his character his character, guys, it's not up for negotiation just because my heart has become dull. [01:29:30] (44 seconds)  #GodsCharacterUnchanged