The Prodigal God

All right. Make your way back to your seat. We’ll keep singing. Next up, number four is next up on our docket, “To God Be the Glory.” So if you make your way back to your seat and stay standing, we will sing. So words are on your screen. Here we go.

That’s enough niceties. For Tori, which is “Revive Us Again,” share that one. And we’ll sing that as well. So words are on your screen. We’ll keep singing. Education Bibles. Pastor Al stole all my lines when he told y’all all that he did. So I’m going to do something different. If you were at VBS, whether you were a worker or a sitter, would you please stand? Thank you so much. Kids, too. Thank you very much. Let’s give him a round of applause. Yes. He said it’s on. You’re not on yet because you’re not on. You girls can just have a seat anywhere you want to. We had over 40 adults every night helping us. We had over 60 children every night. And we had a blast. I think it was a wonderful week. And I thank you so much for all you workers. We could not have done it without everyone. Everybody had a part. From cleaning up in the bathroom, to cooking, to slides. It was wonderful. And we thank you very much for doing that. And I think the rest of it has already been said, right?

Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for letting us have your children this week. We sure enjoyed them. Every night I talked about the mission project with the children. And we had a project for the whole week. And we decided this year to do it for Operation Christmas Child. I know many of you are familiar with that. But some are not. And so we collect items. And we send off these little boxes for Operation Christmas Child every year. So we had the kids collect an offering this year for that. So that we could buy items to go into these boxes and use them when we had a packing party. Well, they collected over $1,100. Isn’t that awesome? We had them bring pairs of socks to include in the boxes. And they collected over 200 pairs of socks. So it was just an awesome week and an awesome offering and items collected. And we’re just so happy that they were able to be here with us. And now I think they’re going to sing a song.

All right. Now we’re going to do one of the songs. So if y’all, big guys, if y’all want to go in the back, you can. And the little guys in the front. And we’re going to sing one of the songs that they performed every single night. And they get really loud on the chorus.

• Yes. Be strong in the Lord, in the strength of His might. Be strong in the Lord, strength of His might. You may stand against the schemes of the devil. You may be strong of His might.

At your Bibles, I’d like you to turn with me to chapter 15. We’ll just kind of go over a little bit of what I did last week, but from a different angle. I believe Jesus’ greatest parable or story, remember a parable is nothing more than kind of a fictional story for a spirit that’s been told for a larger spiritual purpose. And Jesus, at a certain point in His ministry, just turned, and that’s pretty much how He taught. He taught through parables and stories. Sometimes they understood, and sometimes they didn’t. And last week, He did the parable of the prodigal son. And there’s just so much. You know, I went back, and I was listening to other guys talk about it and do it. And some guys would spend, you know, four weeks just talking on the other side. this one parable. I’m not going to do that. But I do want to go back to it and just do it from a different angle. Because my question is this. I mean, what do you think about God? If I was to ask you, how do you view God? Most of you would say, well, He’s the judge. He’s the creator. He knows everything. He’s all powerful. He can be everywhere at one time, all those kind of things. Because here’s why that’s important. See, your view of God will determine how you live your life. Your perspective of God will determine how you live your life. And I want to ask you this. How many of you look at God as just being good? William Bryant Smith writes a book called The Good and Beautiful God.

And in it, that’s how He looks at God. His deal is this: I want people in the world to look at the Father like the Son looked at the Father. That we look at God like Jesus looked at the Father. I don’t know if we do that all the time. And yet in this parable, that’s how we see the Father.

See, I want you to understand something about the parable of the prodigal son. It’s not a parable about parenting, how dads need to treat sons or sons need to treat parents. And that’s not, because that’s not who Jesus is talking to here. Jesus has a bunch of sinners. Basically, He’s got a whole bunch of tax collectors, you know, that were reviled by their own people because they were cheating their own people. He has those sitting probably at a dinner table. On the outside looking in, He’s got religious rulers who are there to listen to every word He says, basically to find some kind of fault in what He’s saying so they can nail Him later on down the line. And so these are the two types of folks that He’s preaching to.

So it’s not a parenting parable. It’s a parable about the Father. And it’s about God. And that we’re to treat people who do us wrongly like God deals with those kind of folks. That’s what this story is really about. So it’s called the parable of the prodigal son. The late Tim Keller kind of referred to it this way. He called it the Prodigal God. You know, and I had never heard that before. And so I started to read everything God kind of does or the Father does in this perspective, in this story, is kind of against the grain against Jewish tradition. You want to talk about somebody kind of walking away? It’s the things that the Father, and that’s where I want us to go today.

Now let’s just kind of recap the story a little bit. You’ve got a younger son who’s probably pretty, if you want to hear today’s right now, probably just stupid. He wants what he wants right now, when he can get it. He’s not interested as far as the father’s concerned, you know, or the son’s concerned about the father. He, you know, as far as he’s concerned, I don’t want to wait till you’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, you’re dead already. So just give me what’s mine. What I get when you’re dead, just go ahead and give it to me now. And the father does.

And, you know, money back then was not like it is today. Now they didn’t have banks and trusts and all those things. And so what he does is he probably has to sell a bunch of land to give the son what would have been his had he died. And he gives it to him. And he goes, and the Bible says he goes off to a distant country, and there he just squanders it. So that’s kind of where it all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it really starts getting into the father.

1995, the Greyhound Bus System, which is the largest provider of inner city bus transportation in America, marked their anniversary. Well, just a few years ago, marked their anniversary of a very important program they launched decades ago. And they started in 1995. It was called Home Free. And that’s because what Greyhound Bus does is they offer free tickets to any runaway that wants to go home. All you’ve got to do is meet some qualifications, kind of identify who you are, and know that there’s probably something, someone out there looking for you. If you can prove that, they will give you a free ticket to go home. And that’s been going on for a couple of decades now. In fact, by 2020, over 18,000 runaways had bought tickets, or not bought tickets, were given tickets to go home. Probably now, it’s probably closer to 20,000. There were no Greyhound tickets back then. But the younger son wants to go home.

So what do we see about the father in this story? Well, one thing we see about him is, and I want to just describe how good he is. I’m going to come up with, I think, or just four adjectives to describe what he does in this passage. The first one is this. He’s compassionate. Look what it says. Jesus is telling this story. Verse 14. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. So he went and he hired himself out to warn the citizens of that country, and he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly killed, filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating. Now, I’m thinking, you didn’t eat that stuff. I’m thinking, you’ve got to be pretty hungry when you look at what pigs are eating, that humans would not eat. And because nobody else was offering him food, as long as he had money and could pay for it, he was good to go. But as soon as he came into need, nobody was helping him. And when you’re so hungry, you ever been that hungry, that even what pigs were eating looked good, you’re pretty hungry. And he would have gladly filled, verse 16, with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving him anything to him.

But when he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread? But I’m here dying in hunger. I will get up, go to my father’s house. I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your hired men. And so he got up, came to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion for him, ran and embraced him, kissed him. And the son said to his father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to the slaves, Quickly bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, sandals on his feet, bring the fatted calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

The father shows compassion. In the Hebrew, that word compassion comes actually meaning inside. You ever been so, gosh, caught up in emotion that your stomach just turned and churned? Well, that’s how this father was. You know, and the seed of the emotion in Hebrew, and to the Jewish folks, was not the heart. It was that area around the stomachs, the bowels here, because that’s where life goes on as far as they were concerned. And now you’re not going to see that in a Hallmark card, you know. I love you with my bowels. That’s not going to be in a Hallmark card. But to them, this is where the seed of the emotions, because, I mean, it just affected you. You know, one thing I found out when I had my first gallbladder attack was, all the nerves run here, and when you have a gallbladder attack, it appears in the middle of your chest. Why? Because all the nerves go there. I’m thinking I’m having a heart attack. I’m having a gallbladder attack. Well, it’s everything.

And so this father loves upon him. And what he gives, he gives him two things. He gives him mercy, and he gives him grace. Now, what is mercy? Mercy is not getting what you deserve. What does this young guy deserve? He deserves nothing. He was given everything, and he squandered it. He deserves nothing. What is interesting here, the Jews back in those days had a ceremony. You can go back to the Jewish Talmud, and you can read about it. It’s called the Kaza. The Kaza was one of those things, when you embarrass your family, when you embarrass your community, I mean, they just cut you off. So if they saw this guy coming down the street, almost before the father could get to him, what they would have done is they would have met him at the gate and said, No way, bud. In fact, we’re going to have kind of a little mock trial for you right now. And they would have gone quickly, and they would have probably tried to stone him to death right there because he had not only embarrassed his own family and his father, who was apparently of some kind of stature in this neighborhood, but he embarrassed the community.

And here’s how they would have shown it. They would have gotten basically a huge bowl. They would have put beans in it. They would have burned them. And then they would have brought him up, sat him down, and then taken that bowl with those burned beans and crushed it right in front of him, saying this is what you are to us. would have, if they hadn’t killed him, they would have run him off. You’re no longer welcome back. That’s the kazah. See, it was done for a person, literally, listen to this now. It was done for a person who Would embarrass his family, take what they have, go to a Gentile land, a distant land, squander everything, and then try to come back. But what does the father have? He has mercy. He didn’t get that. What did he get? He got grace. Now, what’s grace? See, mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. Okay, that’s the difference between mercy and grace. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. And he didn’t deserve his father’s grace.

The Bible says that his father, again, had such emotion in him coming up. Now, for guys to run, especially older guys, this is kind of humiliating. They would, again, they would take their robes, they would bring them up to above their knees so they could move. And the Bible talks about how he moved. I mean, it was almost like he was in a race. He couldn’t get to his son fast enough. And the Bible talks about that he actually throws himself. He looks at him. Look what he says. He runs, and he embraced him, and he kissed him.

Now, you need to go back into the original language, understand exactly what he does. He doesn’t come just walking up to him and expect the inferior to now bow to the superior. The superior embraces the inferior. Bible says he, if you go back to the original translation, he falls on him. That’s how he embraces him. He falls on him. Is that not a picture of our heavenly father and His compassion? We don’t get what we do. We deserve hell for the sin in our life, but we get grace. He leaves heaven and earth, and He comes to us. He’s compassionate. He’s not only compassionate, here’s the second thing. He’s generous.

See, let me tell you something with God. You never get God’s leftovers. Do you ever notice that? See, when we come to Christ, we now have access to the resources of heaven. We don’t get leftovers. We get God’s best, and it’s not saved for fancy occasions. It’s happening now. He says, go get the fatted calf. He gives him His best ring. He gives him His best robe. He gives him sandals so his feet don’t have to bleed on the road, and then He says, now it’s party time. We’re going to rejoice. That’s just how God thinks. God is not just compassionate. God’s generous, and I want to tell you something.

Let me tell you how this son hurt his dad. He hurt him in two ways. He hurt him financially, because when this land or whatever he owned that he had to get rid of to pay the son, which he never gets back, and is lost forever. It’s not like the kid went and invested it, or the kid went and tried, you know, went to Vegas and doubled his money. He didn’t get any of that. He lost everything, so the father gets nothing in return, and yet he gives his son the best. Isn’t that like our heavenly father? What did He give us out of heaven? He gave us Himself. He gave us the best. Jesus, the incarnate son of God, fully human, fully divine, who comes down in human form, leaves the throne room, and comes to us. We get God’s, we always get God’s best.

He hurt his son financially, and he shamed him. He robbed him socially, and here the son tries to deal with both the debts, which I find kind of interesting. When you go back and you read about this story, and you get people to look back and how it was written, it’s almost as if when the son is there, and he’s thinking about, what do I need to do? The Bible says he comes to his senses. Now, how did he do that? Well, he’s pouring out slop for these pigs that are probably pretty happy they’re getting fed, and the Bible says he comes to himself. The translation might read is as if he wakes up, and he says to himself, what in the world am I doing here? I mean, these pigs got it better off than I got it.

Chuck Swindoll, who’s one of my favorite pastors and authors, writes it this way. Remorse for his rebellion did not move him. Regret for his sinfulness did not rattle his conscience. The humiliation of tending swine did not trigger his Jewish heritage. It was the realization that pigs were enjoying a superior lifestyle to his own would spark that moment where all some things became real clear. I mean, look again, verse 18. I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. It’s Almost like he’s plotting. I know this is what I got us. If I’m ever had anybody sit there and tell you what they think you want to hear? You ever had your kids do that? I will tell you, if you’re in the ministry long enough, people walk into our offices, and they’re trying to, you know, work us a line. You ever had someone do that in the parking lot of Walmart or something? They’re looking for some money, and they start giving a long line? I always figure the more they tell me, the less is probably true, and they’re probably giving you about five percent of it’s the truth anyway.

And so he’s sitting there going, what can I tell my dad? Number one, I have sinned against heaven, which he had, but then he said, I have sinned against you. You know where else you can find that? Because remember, Jesus is talking to the religious rulers. They would know this. If you go back to the book of Exodus, right there about the seventh plague, the locusts, Pharaoh comes to Moses, and he says these words, I have sinned against your God, and I have sinned against you. You think he meant it? He didn’t mean it. And so these Pharisees and these religious rulers, these scribes would have heard that, and they’d have gone, this kid doesn’t mean that, in this part of the story. They would have known that. They would have figured it out.

But he’s the occasion, and they’re going to do it now. He’s not going to make him grovel. He’s not going to make him sit there and go through. He almost interrupts him and says, no, no, let’s go in, and let’s bring out the good stuff. You know, when I grew up, you know, I don’t know if they do it anymore, but I can remember growing up. What’d you get at every bride at the wedding usually got what? They got china, right? Crystal and china. Let me ask this. How often do you use your crystal in china? How often my mama did. Now, my mama would pull out a little more often, but it’s usually a museum piece, isn’t it? Unless it’s like Thanksgiving, or you got the whole family over there, or maybe Christmas dinner, or something like that. But yeah, this guy wasn’t doing that. This was party time now.

And I can, again, like I said last week, I can imagine these tax collectors, these, quote, sinners, listen, go, man, can I get part of a party like that? And he’s hearing about a father who is compassionate, who’s generous, who’s not only that, but he’s also patient. He’s patient. He’s patient except in giving his gifts. I mean, he waits for his son. He probably knows exactly where his son’s at. I’m thinking that’s, that part of the world, you know, where if you wanted to do party, you know what city you would go to. You wanted to spend your money, you’d go do that. So he was patient on his son. You know, his son had everything he wanted.

And I see this in teenagers today. Bless their hearts. I mean, they just, it’s like, I want, I want what I want. I want to do it when I won’t do it. I want it now. And I don’t want you telling me how to do it. Is that not true? I mean, I think every teenager goes to some of that. And that’s what he gets here. See, he gets everything he wants. He gets to do it when he wants. See, he gets to do it where he wants. He gets to do it how he wants. He gets to do it whom he wants to do it with, without. Dad’s sticking his nose in the middle of it. And where does he get him? Where does he get him? Gets him nothing. Bible says he loses it all. Bible says he comes to his senses. And what does he, he realizes. And even though he wants, he knows I got to go home. And maybe I’ll try and manipulate my dad. But then I I think when he sees how his dad is, that he’s compassionate. He’s generous. He’s even been patient.

But God, I want to tell you something about the Lord. He’ll wait for you to come to your senses. But let me tell you something else, too. Satan’s patient, too. See, Satan already knows he’s, you know, when we’re born, we’re born into this thing called sin. I mean, I’ve got a beautiful three-year-old granddaughter. I’m telling you, mine, no, no. She’s got that word down. All those kind of things In her life. You want to see original sin? Look at the little one. You got to teach them that. She’s sweet. She can be generous. She can be loving. But I’m telling you, there’s a nature inside of us that if we don’t deal with, and I want to tell you something about Satan. He’s patient. He can wait. He can wait to ruin your life. And he’ll just let you go on, and he’ll sit there and just watch God try to work, and then he’ll just be patient for his opportunities.

God’s patient, too. God loves you, and God wants to embrace you. Father’s not just compassionate and generous and patient. Here’s the most important one. He’s forgiving. Seeing dads. Seeing dads in this world that are compassionate, generous, patient, forgiving. Maybe we could have preached this on Father’s Day.

A guy named David Blankenhorn, in an insightful book called Fatherless America, proves this point. He says, “The United States is becoming an increasingly fatherless society. A generation ago, an American child could reasonably expect to grow up with his or her father. Today, an American child can reasonably expect not to. Fatherlessness is now approaching a rough parity with fatherhood as a defining feature of American childhood. This astonishing fact is reflected in many statistics, but here are the two most. Tonight, about 40% of American children will go to sleep in homes in which their fathers do not live. Before they reach the age of 18, more than half of our nation’s children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhood living apart from their dads. Never before in this country have so many children been voluntarily abandoned by their dads. Never before have so many children grow up without knowing what it meant to have a dad, a father.”

Break your heart. You know when this was written? In ’98.

He then goes on to say this, “Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend in this generation. If this trend continues, fatherlessness is likely to change the shape of our society.”

I think we’re seeing that.

Consider this prediction. “After the year 2020, as people born after 1970 emerge as a large population of our working adult world, the United States will be a nation divided into two groups, separate and equal. The two groups will work in the same economy, speak a common language, remember the same national history, but they will live fundamentally divergent lives. One group will receive basic benefits, psychological, social, economic, education, and moral, that are denied in the other group. But the primary fault line dividing the two groups will not be race, it will not be religion, it will not be class, education, or gender. It will be patrimony. One group will consist of those who grew up with a daily presence and provision of fathers. The other group will consist of those who did not.”

Guys, that’s how important you are. But let me go one step further spiritually. There is a group that will grow up with their heavenly Father and a group that will grow up without their heavenly Father. And if I could look at dads right now this morning, I’m telling you, when you stand before the Lord, you’re the one that answers to Him how your family was raised spiritually. Mama’s not going to answer that. You’re going to answer that. God’s going to look at you and say, how did your wife and how did your kids grow up in the nurture and admonition of my teachings?

What this young man is learning, and even the oldest brother is learning, is dad’s not so bad. Dad forgave me. Dad did those things for me. See, we are never more like God than when we forgive. And when we come to our senses, we got to do it because we don’t want to live that way anymore.

Years ago, I had a deacon. His name was Jim Tinsley. I wish you could have met Jim. Jim was one of the sweetest, neat guys I’ve ever met. Jim loved being a deacon. But there was a time in Jim’s life where you didn’t want to be around Jim. Jim was a drunk. He was an alcoholic. Jim told me one time, he said, “Al, I was in Miami. My mom was dying here in Charleston. And I was on a three-week drunk. And the only thing I could care about was where I was going to get my next bottle.”

Jim came to quit that mess. But here’s what he said. “I couldn’t quit for my mama. I couldn’t quit for my kids. I couldn’t quit for my job. I couldn’t quit for anybody else. I had to Quit for me. I had to come to a place in my life where I had to say, “I don’t want to live like this no more.” Then God can go in there and say, “Now we can work.” See, when you come to a place where you want such a relationship with your father, your heavenly father, that you say, “I don’t want to live like this no more. I want to live like this.” You know what the father does? He forgives you. You know what was happening on that road when that young boy came back to his dad? His dad was forgiving him when he didn’t even know what he was going to say before he said it. Before he knew what he was thinking, his dad was forgiving him.

And if you want to talk about a picture of what God does for us and how He expects us, see, that’s one reason church is important. You know, we talk about discipleship. I love what Dallas Willard, he says, it’s not, let’s give it another word. Let’s call it apprenticeship. That as women and men of faith, that we come to a place where we want to do the apprenticeship of sitting under the feet of Jesus so that we can be more like Jesus. And we trust Jesus. Let’s take faith and just give it another name because faith really is nothing more than trust.

See, the father has set up everything for you to come home. He’s done all the work. The father, he’s assertive. He’s aggressive in the fact that without understanding what’s going on in the son’s heart, he forgives him. He doesn’t make him grovel. He acts first. Is that not what happened with Jesus? He acted first? See, that’s not how we are. We’ll say, “I got my pride.” I’m not sure pride’s a good word in scripture. It’s just not. What do you think about God? Is He good? Do you think of Him as compassionate? Even with all the things that, see, one day we’re going to stand in heaven. We’re going to understand why things happened the way they did. It seemed unfair here. Why did God allow that to go on? Why didn’t He just step in and take care of that? You know, God has enough love for us that He says, “If you want to choose to do that, do that.” That’s what this father does. He’s patient again. Sometimes he waits for us to come to our senses. Now, He has set up everything for us to come to our senses. He’s not going to force you. He’s not going to bend that arm behind your back and say, “You do it or else.” That’s how He is.

Let me close with this. If you know anything about the Lewis and Clark expedition at the early 1800s, where they went, you know, all the way across America, I mean, to the very Columbia River Basin. And it’s, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there. It’s beautiful. It’s right there where Washington State and Oregon kind of come together. It’s a beautiful river. It’s just majestic. Two guys didn’t come back from that expedition. One actually got sick and passed away. But the other guy just got swallowed up by the beauty. I mean, he loved it. He looked around and said, “Man, I’ve never seen mountains like these. I have never seen rivers like these and forests like these and places to hunt and fish like this. I just want to live here the rest of my life.” His name was John Coulter. Big guy. And John decided that Lewis and Clark left and they partied and they went back east. But he stayed. And he started making his life as a trapper. And that’s kind of what he did. And he became pretty famous in that area. I mean, he was well known.

And one day around the Bighorn River, he was fishing and trapping with a buddy of his named Potts. And they were in the boat. And all of a sudden he noticed some rustling on one side of the river and some on the other. And he noticed they were Indians and it was a war party. And they started coming out and they were about to fire their arrows. And he realized, “We’ve got to get out of this because we’re helpless in this canoe.” And he got to the shore and he said, “We’ve got to look strong.” And Potts, his buddy, grabbed the rifle. And he said, “No, no, no, no, don’t start. Not yet.” And he grabbed the rifle. And then Potts got scared, jumped in. He said, “No, don’t get in the canoe. And about that time all those arrows went. And his buddy was all of a sudden killed. And now he’s standing on the shore and he’s surrounded. And they capture him, put him to the ground. Now they’re trying to decide what they’re going to do with him. So I said, let’s get him alive. And I said, well, let’s burn him. Let’s just whip him to death. And then the chief has this little idea. Kind of smiles. And he goes over and says, can you run like a deer? Of course, John Coulter’s kind of going. And he’s going, no, no, I run like a turtle. Chief says. So he puts his mark in the line on the sand at the bank and braves him behind there. And actually, John Coulter could run. He was quite an athlete in pretty good shape. And they gave him a 300 head start. And he took off for his life.

Now you’ve got to understand, they had stripped him just butt naked. The Indians only had maybe a loincloth and maybe some moccasins. But they had a loincloth and moccasins. And he just takes off. And he’s running a lot faster than they thought he was going to run. But they’re after him. And all of a sudden, one mile. And he looks up. And about six miles away, he sees a tree line. He says, I can just get to the tree line. And he’s running. And he looks back. And one mile, two miles. And all of a sudden, he started separating himself from this. Now there’s a couple of braves that are pretty close to getting closer to him and coming up to him. And all of a sudden, one starts to get within about 50 yards of him. He turns around. And he just throws his hands up in the air. And he yells at the guy. And the guy gets startled. And he chunks his lance. Because he realizes, if I don’t do something, I’m within this guy’s range. And it misses him. He picks it up. And when the guy threw it, he fell. And then culture was able to kill him. Actually pinned him to the ground. And he took off again. And he’s got about another mile and a half to get to that tree line. And these braves are now ticked. But they’re after him.

He gets to the tree line. He goes into the water right there at the river. And then it’s icy cold. In the middle of the sandbar, he’s got some driftwood on him. And he slides. And he slides under the driftwood. And he can just get his head up high enough where he can breathe. And he sees them looking for him. And they’re mad. They’re mad knowing that he got away. But he killed one of them. And they’re just. And he’s just. He’s freezing. Again, he’s naked. He’s just trying to survive. Some even stand on top of the driftwood that he’s literally under. And then they finally give up. He makes it downriver. It’s dark night. He kind of goes in a cave. He tries to keep himself warm. And the closest place to where he’s at is a trading camp called Bighorn. And it’s 150 miles away. Seven days later. Seven days. He walks in naked. Into that camp. And he becomes a legend.

The reason I tell you that story is here’s a guy that was just running and running and running. My question to you this morning, what are you running from? Are you running away from God? Or are you running to God? See both in this story. See the God that we’re running to. He’s compassionate. He’s generous. He’s patient. And the most important thing of all is He’s forgiving. The Bible says while we were yet sinners, He dies for us. He goes to the cross. He bears our shame and our sorrows. The Bible says He goes to the cross. He gives His life up for ours. He pays the penalty. That’s the kind of God that’s out there waiting for us. Not just some judge that’s ready to nail us. I mean, we got, people got this. It’s all, how do you look at God? And I want to tell you, like John Coulter, there’s someone after you that just, that wants to kill you spiritually. Patient. And I want to tell you, He’s not compassionate. He’s not generous. There’s always a price to whatever He asks from you.

I was looking at a thing about, about sin this week. I can find it. See, sin promises, but it doesn’t produce. Sin promises satisfaction, but it only increases the appetite. It promises happiness, but only increases the hunger for more. Father’s waiting. And the father’s waiting like this. And when he comes, he’s coming with everything. He actually throws himself on you. And he covers you. And he takes care of you.

So my question to you this morning is this: Are some of you just waiting for something to come to the father? What are you waiting for? I mean, my, my Lord, what are you waiting for? Or some of you have, you kind of walked away. You know, the son was still part of the family. Father never disowned him. No, the son comes to him and says, “I am not your son anymore.” And really, that was a true statement back in those days. Because he had taken the money, had disgraced the father, and then had lost it. He was no longer part of that family. But not with God. That takes you back. God gives you a second chance. He didn’t even do that to the angels. Gives them a second chance.

What decision will you make this morning? Where are you going to come home to? One day we’ll have our eventual home. But when are you going to come home here? What are you going to do? Father, I thank you for that, Father. Because I thank you for you. This is, again, a story about parenting, even though we can kind of get some of that. This is a story about a dad and how He treats us. How He treats people that disgrace Him. How He treats people that burn Him financially. How He treats. And maybe we get a picture of maybe how we ought to treat people. Good enough for you. Maybe it ought to be good enough for us.

But first, if we’re ever going to learn how to love people and treat people where people look at us and say, “Man, I want to be like that,” we’ve got to get to know You. We’ve got to come to You. Lord, maybe we start today. Thank You for just being who You are. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Donnie, you’ll show that to someone else. You know, we’re never more like God than when the Spirit just kind of worked in you that way. Say it was going to be easy. You’re never more like God when you’re that way. Because you want people to say, sit there again to look at you. And again, you may be the only Jesus someone ever sees. So have that.

Again, thank you to our ladies and our men who work with Vacation Bible. To our kids who seem to have a blast. It’s just something interesting. When you just see kids just having fun in the Lord’s house, it’s just precious. With His children, His life. So there’s a lot of life this week. Have a great week. And don’t forget Wednesday night. Let’s go, Lord, in prayers. We’re dismissed.

Father, thank You. Thank You for who You are. And Lord, may the deal be this: that we know that You accept us just the way we are. Like You were saying. But God will love us enough that You don’t leave us that way. It’s better. So Lord, help us be better this week. Guide us. And just the way. And just counsel Him with us. Again, Father, until we come back to this place again. And we ask this in the name of the Lord of every name. The awesome name of Jesus. God’s people said.