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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffers, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition, a Pathway to Victory. God blood sheep. And the fact that he allows you to feel the pain of your sin is a sign not that he hates you, but that he loves you.
Because the pain that you continue to feel of your sin is one way God ensures that you stay back home and never wander away again. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffers. You know, at some point or another, almost every Christian is going to wander from God.
So once we've come home from that spiritual crisis, how can we avoid making the same mistake again? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress reveals the single most important part of any spiritual homecoming. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory.
Let me start with a personal question. When was the last time your soul felt truly refreshed? I want you to join me for the Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska. The dates are June 13th through 20th, 2026. I guarantee you're going to enjoy the profound spiritual renewal that comes from witnessing God's masterpiece of creation firsthand.
From Vancouver's stunning harbor to Alaska's pristine wilderness, this is a pilgrimage through God's Cathedral of Natural Wonders. There's something transformative about standing before a towering glacier or watching eagles soar overhead. Check out all the details and reserve your spot by going to ptv.org. Today I want to speak to you about the aftermath of a beautiful celebration when the prodigal returns home. We've all heard sermons about the prodigal son's joyful homecoming.
But what about the morning after?
Well, that's when the reality sets in and the prodigal faces a sobering truth. The same temptations are still there. Coming home is just the beginning. I've written about this truth in a book called Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. whether you're the prodigal running from God or someone you love is far from home.
The biblical principles in this book will guide you, and a copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.
Okay, right now it's time to begin today's study in Luke chapter 15. My message is titled, The Morning After. Monday mornings The day after your summer vacation, The morning after your 50th birthday party. What do all of those events have in common? They all represent the day after the celebration has ended.
The fact is, the end of a celebration is always difficult. It's difficult for two reasons. First of all, the end of a celebration represents the cessation of fun. But it also represents the resumption of routine. And it's hard to get back into the routine after you've had a great celebration.
Now, the prodigal son faced that kind of situation the morning after his homecoming celebration. If you have your Bibles tonight, I want you to turn to Luke 15 and remember where we've left off now in our study of the prodigal son. Remember, he had come home. He had allowed a crisis to lead him to a point of repentance. And we saw last time how when the son came home, the son came walking, but the father went running after his son.
They embraced one another. They kissed. The son said, I'll be your slave. The father said, I'll have none of that. And he called for a giant celebration.
In fact, in verse 22, the father said to his servants, Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and bring a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it. And let us eat and be merry. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found.
And the last sentence, and they begin to be merry. But what about the next morning? I've heard a lot of sermons about that homecoming celebration. I have never once heard a sermon about the morning after. And so I allowed my mind to wander just a little bit.
and decide what that morning after must have been like in the prodigal's home. I would imagine everybody probably slept in a little bit later that next morning. After all, they were physically exhausted from being up all night partying. And not only that, there was the emotional drain they had gone through of all of the events that had culminated in the son's homecoming. And so I imagine that they had slept in for a little while, but I imagine as the son finally awakened and he hit the snooze button and he knew it was time to get up, I imagine he had a sense of letdown.
Of a tremendous emotional letdown because the fact is, not that much had changed after he came home. In fact, the same factors were present in his home that had caused him to leave home to begin with. Not only that, he still had to contend with that obnoxious older brother. The older brother was still there. That older brother, who was not sorry to see the younger son leave, and he wasn't happy to see him returned either.
And in fact, when you look at verse 25, you find that while the music is going on inside and the people are dancing, look in verse 25. It says, Now the older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard the music and the dancing. And he went to find out what's going on. And when he heard the news, he refused to come in and join the celebration. And remember, the father went out to try to reason with the son.
He said, Realize what has happened. Your younger brother has come home again. Nevertheless, no matter how much the Father gave his, I love you both equally, speech. The older brother was unpersuaded and he stayed outside. And I imagine the younger son had to contend with sarcastic remarks from the older brother the rest of his life that he spent in his father's house.
And number three, his taste for sin had not disappeared. You know, as we saw a few weeks ago, life in the far country is not all pain. There's some pleasure with it. And I imagine there were times that he daydreamed about life back in the far country. I imagine the son thought to himself, I left the far country to come back home for this.
His taste for sin had not evaporated. You know, it would have been great to have closed this series with last week's message. As the people are partying, the families reuniting, just allow it to fade to black and say, what a great end to the story. But to end the story there would be dishonest, because after every homecoming, there is always a morning after. We've said in this series, to come back to God, there are four ingredients necessary.
There has to be a crisis. Nobody ever comes back to God without a crisis. Secondly, there has to be repentance, a sincere change of mind that leads to a change of action. There has to be forgiveness on the Father's part, and He's willing to do that if we take that first step back home. But there's a fourth ingredient for a homecoming we're going to look at, and that is perseverance.
Once you come home, you have to be intent on staying home. How do you do that? How can you make sure that once you've come back to the Father who loves you, you never leave home again? Could I suggest to you that there are four ingredients that are necessary to stay home once we have come home? Number one, and perhaps most importantly, Maintain realistic expectations.
Maintain realistic expectations. You know, there is nothing that destroys relationships anymore than unrealistic expectations. You have to have realistic expectations. By the way, that is also true in your relationship with God. Let me explain what I mean to you.
If you have come back home from the far country, if you have reestablished that relationship with God, there are several unrealistic expectations you need to guard against. First of all, don't expect your sinful desires to evaporate. Don't expect your sinful desires to evaporate. Whatever temptations Satan has used to lure you away from God in the past, don't be surprised if Satan continues to use those same temptations in your life. I wish I could promise you that there is a once-for-all decision you could make that would forever quench your desire for sin.
There is no such decision. Temptation will be a part of your life until the day you go home to meet Christ. Sin may lessen its appeal to you, but it will never be lost forever. Secondly, don't expect instant forgiveness from other people when you come back home. You know, the older brother in this story, it didn't take a rocket scientist who heard this to figure this out.
He represented the Pharisees. Remember, the Pharisees criticized Jesus for hanging around sinners. And Jesus told the story, along with the other two parables, to say God doesn't hate sinners, He loves them, and He rejoices when they come home to Him. The Pharisees did not rejoice when sinners came home. They resented it when sinners came home.
They hated sinners. They never put themselves in that category. And so the older brother represents the Pharisees who did not want the younger son to come home again. By the way, everybody who struggles with forgiving you. should not be labeled a Pharisee.
I think about the story of the man who was lamenting to a friend about his wife. He said, I just don't know what to do. Every time we get into an argument, she gets historical. His friend said, You mean hysterical? The husband said, No, I mean historical.
She's always dredging up my past mistakes and will never let them go.
Well, there's a reason for that sometimes. If you have deeply wounded... A wife, a husband, a child, a parent, a best friend. Don't be surprised if they take a while before they're ready to offer you forgiveness.
Some may never offer you forgiveness. Don't let that discourage you. You can't control what other people choose to do or not to do when it comes to forgiveness. And by the way, let me switch audiences here. If you are that person who has been wounded by another person, and they come to you asking for your forgiveness.
You may find it difficult to give. You may say, well, why should a simple, I'm sorry, forgive me? How can that erase all of the pain that that person has inflicted upon me? You know the very best reason to forgive someone for what they've done to you? Because God has forgiven you.
C.S. Lewis said to become a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable in others, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. Ephesians 4.32 says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. And number three, don't expect all the consequences of your mistakes to disappear. When you come back into a relationship with God, don't be discouraged when all of the consequences of your sin don't disappear.
The fact is when God forgives us, He does erase our sin. Nevertheless, Many times we still experience the consequences of our sin, sometimes until the day we die. Many times we have to reap the consequences of our sin. Yes, God forgives, but that doesn't negate the universal principle of Galatians 6, verse 7, that says, Behold, whatever a man sows, this he shall also reap. God loves you.
And the fact that He allows you to feel the pain of your sin is a sign not that He hates you, but that He loves you. Because the pain that you continue to feel of your sin is one way God ensures that you stay back home and never wander away again. Uh you all know uh That natural gas in its natural state is practically odorless. The gas company has to add that horrible stench to natural gas that we smell and we associate with it. And the reason they do that is because natural gas, if it begins to leak in your house, it can kill you.
Normally, you wouldn't even smell it. But the stench that they add is a warning sign that something is wrong. In the same way, many times God allows us. to smell the stench of our sin. To feel the pain of our sin as a warning to remind us of the high cost of wandering away from God.
In Psalm 119, verse 67, David said, Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I obey your word. In other words, before I felt the sting of my sin, the pain of God's discipline, I wandered away. But now that I feel and continue to feel that pain, I stay near. That's one reason God doesn't Erase the consequences of our sin, not because he hates us, but because he loves us.
And that leads to a second suggestion for remaining at home. Once you've come home, regularly reflect. upon the pain of your past. Regularly reflect upon the pain of the past of living in the far country. A woman was visiting Switzerland.
And she went to visit a sheepfold. And she noticed in that sheepfold that the sheep were resting by the shepherd. But she noticed nearest the shepherd was a sheep lying on some straw, and one of its legs had been broken. And she asked the shepherd about that sheep with its leg broken, and he said, Well, I'm the one who broke the sheep's leg. And she was shocked.
And she said, well, why would you do that? He said, well, this particular sheep Would always wander away from the fold. Several times he would be on the edge of the cliff, about to go over the cliff. Then he would begin to lead other sheep away as well. And I had to do something drastic, so I broke its leg.
For a while, he said this sheep resented me. Every time I would try to feed it, it almost would bite my hand off. But soon the sheep became submissive to me. And now, no sheep in the sheepfold hears my voice more quickly and obeys me more fully than this sheep. What is it that kept that sheep near its shepherd?
Every time that sheep was tempted to wander away, that sheep remembered the horror of having the shepherd break its leg. The sheep remembered the pain that it continued to feel. and it stayed close to the shepherd. And that's what God does for us. God disciplines us.
He allows us to feel the sting, the pain of our disobedience to keep us close to Himself. And one of the best things we can do is to regularly reflect upon the pain we experienced while living in the far country. You know, most of us have selective memories. We tend to remember the pleasant things and try to delete the unpleasant things. If we're not careful, we can look back on our years of disobedience against God and remember all the fun we used to have without remembering the pain that we felt.
I'm sure one thing that kept the prodigal son at home, when he started to be tempted to go back to the far country, he had to balance his memories of pleasure. with memories of the pig pen. Regularly reflect upon the pain of the past. By the way, that may sound very. Negative to do, but did you know that's what God commands us to do?
When the Israelites stood on the brink of entering into the promised land, God said, no, once you get into the promised land, you're going to be tempted to go after other gods. Remember my discipline in the past. Remember that time you spent as slaves in Egypt. In Deuteronomy 5, verse 15, God said, and you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Deuteronomy 16 verse 2, you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
Deuteronomy 32 verse 7, remember the days of old, consider the years of all generations. Remember, remember, remember. Remember the pain of living apart from God. Number three. To stay home once you've come home, be sure you keep the communication lines open.
Keep the communication lines open. You know, next to unrealistic expectations, lack of communication is the greatest threat to relationships. That's certainly true in the family. You know we preachers have done people such a disservice. We have turned reading the Bible in prayer.
into legalistic requirements. instead of great, great privilege. One reason that we pray is it's a chance for us to honestly communicate to God our deepest feelings. As John Bunyan wrote, prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of our soul to God. And reading the Bible is a way for God to communicate to us, to speak to us about how much He truly loves us.
Make sure that you stay in regular communication. Keep the communication lines open with your Heavenly Father. And then number four. Remember the Father's love. You know, I think perhaps the greatest benefit of reading the Bible.
Is that it reminds us of God's true attitude toward us? The Bible reminds us that even when we wander away from Him, even when we are disobedient or inconsistent in our Christian life, no matter how much we change, God never changes. 2 Timothy 2:13 says, Even if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot. Deny himself. I don't know about you.
I need to hear that, and I need to hear it often. Make sure you regularly reflect upon God's love for you. I was talking just this week with somebody who said, Robert, I'm starting to drift away from God. I'm starting to feel guilty about my past. I find myself not wanting to speak to God.
What should I do? And I said, I want to encourage you to just make a list of three or four things to thank God for. Thank God that he spoke to your heart and allowed you to come back home again. Thank God that he preserved your physical life and didn't take your life as he could have easily done. Thank God for the way He has restored the relationships in your life He has restored.
And as you just take time every day to thank God for these things and remember His love, you'll find your heart being drawn back toward Him. Regularly reflect. on the Father's love. Robert Schuler tells the story of a boy who spent weeks building a miniature sailboat. And after he had finished building the sailboat, it was the time to test it out.
So he took it down to the local pond and he put it in the water. The wind came and filled the sails. And it took that sailboat far beyond the little boy's grasp. He thought he had lost it forever. Heartbroken, he went home, sure that he would never see his sailboat again.
Several weeks later, the little boy was walking down the street in their town, and he walked past the toy store. And to his surprise, he saw that miniature red sailboat right there in the display window. He was so excited, he went in and he talked to the owner. He said, Mister, mister, that's my boat. Can I please have it?
The store owner said, Well, I'm sorry, but you can't have it. You can purchase it.
Well, how much is it? The little boy asked. The store owner said it's $14. The little boy reached into his pocket, pulled out every dollar bill he had. He laid the $14 on the table.
He took that sailboat, clutched it to himself. As he walked down the street, he looked at that sailboat, holding it close to himself, and said, You're mine twice. Once because I made you. And now because I bought you. Never forget.
No matter where you are in life right now. God says, I love you. You're mine twice. Once because I made you. And now because I have bought you, with the blood of my own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even when the winds of materialism and ambition and pleasure blow you and take you far away from God, that doesn't change his attitude toward you. Because you belong to him. Even when you're far away from your Heavenly Father, He never once stops working. Watching. and waiting.
for you to come home. Do you feel the pull and the sheer gravity of God's love for you today? Are you sensing that he's calling you home? All Christians stray from God at some point, whether you're living in the far country in outright rebellion, or you're simply beginning to drift away from God, and you don't feel the intimacy you once enjoyed. All of us know what it's like to lose our way.
Today, I'm inviting you to start the journey home. I've written a book that coincides with our teaching series. It's called Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. The Shepherd is working right now on your behalf to redeem your past. and to guarantee your future with him.
Take your first step today by reading my book called Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. On this final day of the series, you'll also want to request the entire package of resources for this study. I'll be sure to send both resources, my book, Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You, and the Prayer for Your Prodigal Card. With all my heart, I believe our time to push back the forces of evil in our country is running short.
Remember what Paul said in Romans chapter 13? He said, The night is nearly over, the day is almost here.
So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Together, as like-minded partners in ministry, let's seize the day. Your gift will make all the difference in reaching prodigals with compassion and urgency. God, the source of light, is waiting with open arms to welcome the prodigal home. Here's David to tell you more.
Today, when you give a generous gift to support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by sending you a copy of the book by Dr. Jeffers, Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. To request your copy, call 866-999-2965 or visit online at ptv.org. You know, a lot of listeners tell us that Pathway to Victory has earned their trust through its commitment to clear, powerful biblical teaching week after week. And as you give today, you'll also receive a prayer for your prodigal.
It's a prayer card that will encourage you as you bring your loved one before the throne of grace each day. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also mail your gift to P.O. Box 223-609-Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's P.O.
Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, wishing you a great weekend. Then join us again next week for the start of our Christmas celebration. The series Celebrate the Savior begins Monday on Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner.
Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/slash/donate, or you can follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska?
You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it, so what are you waiting for? Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Konings Dam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur. It's beautiful. These moments in God's creation will deepen your faith in powerful ways.
It really will. Experience five-star dining, luxurious staterooms, and visiting iconic ports like Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. We're also bringing along our own Christian entertainment. You'll love it. Seats are filling up, so book your spot today at ptv.org.
