Unquenchable Love

Welcome Summit Church at our different locations here in the Triangle and the many of you that are joining us by live stream, whether you're at home, in a home group or if you're driving around in a car, we want to welcome all of you. We are a church that meets in many different locations on the weekend because of COVID.

But as we're beginning to come back and regather in person, hopefully the amount of those locations will be decreasing even as our numbers are increasing, but it is good for all of you. Want to say welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome to Summit Church. Welcome again, all of you as we are together again here as one church.

I get to start with some good news again this morning. You have already heard from your campus teams that over 3400 people made a commitment last week to be a disciple making disciple, to live as a worshipper, as a family member, as a servant, as a steward and as a witness. What they did not tell you is that over 300 of those were first time decisions of people to trust and follow Jesus.

But yes, you should put your hands together, not lightly. That is amazing. There's 300 people that have gone from being spectator to actual disciple of Jesus. When you think about the amount of people that gather as a crowd on the weekend, the crowd is not who really belongs to Jesus.

It are those who were living as disciple, making disciples. So like you heard from your campus pastor or somebody from your campus team, there is still time for you to make that commitment. If you have not yet, I want you to go to summitchurch.com. You can do that anytime today, or you could even text the word commit right now, 33933. If you will do that, then we will immediately get back with you and it's very easy. I know some of you say you're a little bit like me, I'm a little skeptical to be totally honest with you and you're like, why is this even important? I don't need to fill anything out to actually be a disciple, to actually be serious about following Jesus. Here's why, it is important from time to time for us to take stock and to renew our priorities. And I would say that this is probably, not probably, it is definitely the most important priority of all. And so I will say without hesitation, if you were all in with Jesus and you are not ashamed to admit it, I want you to make this commitment if this church is your church. Now, if you were unclear about whether you're all in or not, or you're not really sure what you want, you're just checking things out, by all means, don't do this. But we want everybody who considers themselves a part of this church, who is serious about following Jesus to do this, whether you've been a Christian for 15 minutes or 15 years.

As we emerge here from lockdown, this is a really good way for us to reset and to recalibrate, okay? Luke 15, if you got your Bibles this morning and I hope that you brought them, Luke 15, open them up, turn them on, whatever you got. Luke 15, one of Christian history's most famous paintings is Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son, pictured here, I'll actually put it up for you. What many don't know about this painting is that this was actually Rembrandt's second painting of the Prodigal Son.

The first Rembrandt did in 1637 when he was only 30 years old. In that version of this picture, Rembrandt places the Prodigal Son in a brothel, the colors are bright, he's got this elated look on his face, a drink in one hand and a beautiful woman on his lap. You look closely, they say, you can see that Rembrandt painted his own face as the face of the prodigal. And the second version, which I have here pictured for you, this is one that Rembrandt painted at the very end of his life. It was, in fact, his last painting, his last statement to the world about his life.

It is clear that by this point in his life, his view of the story had changed. The mood of this version is fundamentally different. In this one, everything is dark, the colors are muted, and you can feel the brokenness of the prodigal, and the light in the picture directs you to the overwhelming compassion of the father. In the first painting, the focus was on the prodigal, and the second, the focus is entirely on the father. Most interesting to me, perhaps, is the fact that in this second painting, Rembrandt does not put his face on the returning prodigal. And biographers say that that was intentional, and that was because Rembrandt doesn't want you and me looking at the painting, saying, oh, look, see that one there?

That's Rembrandt. No, he wants us to see ourselves in the story, and he wants our focus not to be on the prodigal. He wants it to be on the compassion of the father. You see, this story is the biography. The one we're gonna look at today is the biography of every single person in human history put into a parable. It is the story of our relationship with God.

It is your story. Again, Luke 15, we're gonna begin in verse 11. Verse 11 shows you that the story has three main characters. There is a younger son. He's the one that we typically call the prodigal. There is an older son who has a very important role in the story that we sometimes overlook. And then there is the father. A couple of things that people usually get wrong about this story. First, they think the main character is the runaway son. But the main character, as Rembrandt realized, is the father.

The father is mentioned no less than 12 times in a span of 20 verses. Second thing they get wrong is that they think the word prodigal means runaway. That's not what the word prodigal means. Prodigal is an old-fashioned word that means reckless or wasteful.

The prodigal spins and spins until he has nothing left. The word prodigal only appears one time in the story and it's a reference to the son blowing all of his money. What I'm gonna try to show you today is that when you see the bigger point in the story, you will realize that the word prodigal applies just as much to the father as it does to the son because the story is about the recklessness of God's love. As extravagant as is the younger son's spending, even more extravagant is the father's love in redeeming. Look at verse 11.

Look at verse 11. There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. In this story, Jesus gives you a picture of the anatomy of sin, an analysis of sin.

Sin almost always has three distinctive elements. The first is a desire for independence. The son does not want to be in the father's house. The son does not want to be under the father's guidance and care and protection.

He doesn't want to be under the father's rules. For years, I have explained to my own children that the essence of sin is revealed in how you spell the word. How do you spell the word sin?

S-I-N, the middle letter is I. Sin is when I want to be in the center. I want to be in charge, not God. I want to make the rules, not him. My way, my desires, my glory. This boy thinks my ways are better than my father's.

I am the wisest. The second element of sin is a demand for instant gratification. A demand for instant gratification. The son does not want to wait for his inheritance.

It's all coming to him anyway. But he wants it now, quite often. People get tangled up in sin because they can't wait for God's timing.

I gotta have it all right now or I cannot be happy. You know, the writer of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament identifies this, this demand for instant gratification as the reason that a lot of people forfeit eternity in heaven. He uses the Old Testament story of Esau to illustrate that. Esau was the firstborn son of Isaac and he comes in from hunting one day and he is powerful hungry. So his conniving younger brother Jacob offers to give him a bowl of porridge if Esau would yield to him the rights and the privileges of the firstborn. Now this was a colossally stupid trade.

It'd be like trading your entire retirement portfolio for a cold beer. But in an incredible act of insanity, Esau does it. And the writer of Hebrews uses this to illustrate what many people do with their eternity, particularly with their desires for sexual immorality. They sacrifice the eternal on the altar of the temporal.

They give away eternal life and happiness with God for a temporary thrill that doesn't last long and doesn't really satisfy anyway. So your second part of sin is this demand for instant gratification. The third element and the most serious element of all is a desire for the father's death, a desire for the father to be dead. The father is an obstacle to the boy's freedom. It's not that he hates his dad as a man, it's just that his dad represents an obstacle to doing things his way and so he wants him gone.

Right, in saying give me my inheritance, he's like I wish you were already dead. He wants his dad's stuff but he doesn't want his dad. You know there are a few things more painful that a parent could ever experience.

But every parent knows that there comes a point when it is useless to try to force an adult child to do something that they don't want to do. And so verse 12, with broken heart, the father divided his property between them which leads us to our first point. God loves you when you break his heart. You see the shock of this story to the Jewish audience is that this father does not respond how Jewish fathers in that day were expected to respond. In fact in Deuteronomy 21 the Jewish law said that a boy that did such a thing should be stoned to death.

This kind of rejection, this kind of arrogance, pride, ungratefulness, this kind of rebellion the Jewish law says was worthy of death. Even in those situations where the family did not carry through with the sentence, the Jewish community performed a ceremony called the Kezazah, the Kezazah which literally meant cutting off, in which they would declare the rebellious boy to be dead to them and no one in the community would ever speak to them again. The shock of this story is that this father does not respond that way. He lets his son go and instead of pursuing him in anger he opens up his hands and he gives his son the inheritance.

Literally in Greek the word for inheritance is the word bios, his very life. This was more than giving the boy a little money, right? He let the boy go even though it tore his very soul. Verse 13, not many days later the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country and there he squandered his property in reckless, there's your word prodigal, in reckless living and when he had spent everything a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

He was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything. Number two, God loves you as you wander in the darkness. God loves you as you wander in the darkness. This young prodigal's new life started out swimmingly.

Sin always does. He's in the far country, right? He's away from the father, he's away from the restrictions, he's away from the guidelines where he enjoys now everything that money can buy, sin always starts out this way it's parties and freedom and excitement but then the winds changed which they always do. The money ran out, the friends left, then came the brokenness, the loneliness and now this young man who had grown up in privilege and promise is reduced to begging. His new life ends with him taking the lowest job in all of Israel feeding pigs.

Pigs were unclean, they were defiled and there we find this boy sitting in the pen with the pigs, dirty, defiled, hungry, so hungry that he's sharing food with the pigs wondering how in the world that he got there. Maybe that's where you are this weekend. Maybe sexual sin has led you to a series of relationships where you can barely even look at yourself anymore. Maybe it's a pornography addiction that seemed to start out harmless enough but now it's got you in a place that you don't even know how you got there.

Maybe it's alcoholism or maybe it's drugs. Maybe you've lost your job. Maybe you're losing your family.

You're in debt. Maybe you're listening to me right now from prison. And that path you chose with all the money and all the excitement and all the thrills, it promised so much but it has not led where it promised. The pleasures of sin are real but they only last for a season. Eminem, who I typically don't quote a lot during sermons, he acknowledged recently, listen to this, you gotta be careful what you wish for.

I always wish for this but it's become more of a nightmare than a dream. Or take Billie Eilish, she had the number one album in 2019 at only 18 years old. She said recently in an interview, fame is trash.

Why? She said because the more famous I got, the less I enjoyed my life. The Bieber, explained recently even, I had a lot of money.

Clothes, cars, accolades, achievements, awards and I was still unfulfilled. He wrote a song called Loneliness, some of you probably heard that, which explains that journey. Maybe that's where you are this weekend. You're in the far country.

Here's the good news. God loves you as you wander in the darkness. He's never stopped loving you. You see, you should almost read this story in split screen. On one side of the screen is the son and his reckless living on the other side though is the father who's never looked away. The son doesn't realize it but at that very moment that he is eating with the pigs, the father is looking his direction, loving him, thinking about him.

He's never stopped. You see, many people assume that God loves them only when they've returned home and only after they've cleaned up their lives. That is not true. God loved us while we were still sinners, while we were wandering in the far country. You see, I got good news for you this weekend. Your sin did not cancel God's love for you. We live in a cancel culture.

You offend me, I cancel you. Sin did not cancel God's love for you. Right now he is looking for you.

Right now he is longing for you to come home. In Hosea chapter 11 verse seven, here's what God says through Hosea. My people are bent on turning from me. They're not just doing evil. They're bent on doing evil.

They're addicted to doing evil. All they do is think about how to get away from me. All they do is resent me.

All they do is stay angry at me. So what does God respond with? I'll show you who's God. No, verse eight, how can I give you up, Ephraim?

How can I turn you over, O Israel? When you were doing evil, when you were at your worst, God says, not just doing evil, but bent on doing evil. When you were addicted to it, it was then that God cried out, how can I give you up? When you were at your worst, that's when he loved you the most. The miracle of miracles, our sin did not cancel God's love for us.

It's almost as if it made him love us more. He loves you while you wander in darkness. Number three, God loves you as he brings you back. God loves you as he brings you back, verse 17, but when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?

But I perish here with hunger. I, I know I will arise and go back to my father, and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Just treat me as one of your hired servants, and he rose and came to his father. You know, one thing you may not notice about this story, it looks in this story like the son just up and decides to come home on his own, but that's not true. You see, the third, this is the third of three stories in which Jesus talks about God's love for sinners.

The first is a story about a lost sheep. A shepherd, Jesus said, had 100 sheep and one went missing. The shepherd couldn't just cut his losses and rejoice in the 99, he had to go after the one.

Even though it probably would have made better sense just to pay attention to the 99, that the shepherd couldn't do that. I read a business book recently that explained that we tend to focus too much on business that we lose, not realizing that usually it would be more profitable to focus on developing what we have left than it is trying to go after what we lost, and I suppose that is usually good business advice, but that does not work when you love the one that you lost. You have to find it. You can't be happy when it's lost. In fact, the shepherd in this story has more joy over the one that's reclaimed than the 99 that are there healthy and fruitful and multiplying. That's how God feels about you. Like the shepherd, he is out looking for you right now.

He is calling out to you. The second story Jesus tells is about a lost coin. Same situation, a woman's got 10 coins and she loses one somewhere in her house. Similar to the previous story, she doesn't just rejoice in the nine she has left.

She pulls apart the house piece by piece under the rug and she takes the cushions out of the sofa and she takes all her clothes and dumps out the pockets and checks the washing machine and the dryer until she finds that lost one. You know that feeling when you lose your credit card? You're not content with the other six you have in your wallet, you gotta find the one that's lost.

I said desperation, this woman feels for that coin. The climax of Jesus' trilogy in this is this story about the lost son. The nature of love is that it just doesn't stop.

It can't give up. Several years ago, Rick Langston, who was one of our lead pastors, had a younger son, Michael, who just disappeared one day. Nobody knew where he was. He'd been having a tough time in school and he wasn't getting along at home but then one day he was just up and gone. His parents frantically called around but nobody had any idea where he was. Rick said he remembered his son talking about wanting to run away to New York City so he and another one of our pastors, David Thompson, jumped into a car and drove all night up to New York City.

Of course, you realize New York City is a humongous place so when they got to the edge of the city, they stopped, they prayed and they split up. David headed over to Times Square and went in Times Square and thought, where would Michael go in Times Square? So we went into the McDonald's and there sat Michael. He called Rick and he said simply, I found him. I found him.

Rick told me, he said, I never heard three sweeter words in all of my life. I found him. By the way, Mike is now married and he and his wife, Megan, now belong to our downtown campus and they serve as foster parents so this serves, turns out very well indeed but the point is this is the desperation that God feels for you when you are lost. He can't be happy until he finds you. Again, you don't see it illustrated as much in this final story but he is seeking you just like the shepherd goes out looking for the sheep or the woman goes out looking for the lost coin. He puts things into your life to call out to you, to wake you up. Sometimes it's a memory that you can't shake. Sometimes it's a conversation that just comes out of nowhere.

Sometimes it's pain, a broken marriage, a severed relationship, a lonely heart, a failed career. I talked once with a professional athlete here in the area who was one of the most promising young athletes around. He had just signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with a professional team but he and some buddies had hopped onto some motorcycles and gone out to have some fun. He had an accident where he shattered his leg in multiple places beyond repair.

His contract stipulated that if he hurt himself while riding a motorcycle, his contract would be null and void. That meant that in the space of just a moment, he had lost literally everything. We were sitting together at the Mad Hatter in downtown Durham and he told me through tears in his eyes. He said, as I lay there in that hospital room, all I could think is why would God do this to me? He said, my other thought was I can't believe I threw away my entire career for a few seconds on a motorcycle. He confessed to me there, sitting there in that coffee shop that he had not been walking with God but this accident had forced him to rethink some things and that's when he'd come into our church.

That's when I had met him. So there we sit in the middle of the Mad Hatter in downtown Durham and I looked at him and I said, amen, I don't mean to speak too boldly or presumptively but I don't think you should interpret this as God's anger at you, I think you should interpret it as his kindness. Because see, you said I can't believe I threw away my entire career for a few seconds on a motorcycle but what if God was waking you up before you threw away your entire eternity for a few seconds in the spotlight?

I remember him sitting there saying, I get it, I get it, I get it now. I understand what God is trying to say to me and I asked him, I was like, man, do you wanna give your life to Christ? He said, here?

I said, why not? And I explained to him how he could pray to receive Christ and I'll never forget as he reached across that table, kinda unprompted and grabbed both of my hands and started to pray, not in a quiet voice but I mean, the whole place of the Mad Hatter turned into like a little prayer place, is this very well known to be professional athlete, prayed and gave his heart to Christ. It was one of the most amazing events that I've ever been a part of, not typical for that Mad Hatter crowd in downtown Durham, by the way. But see, I know that for many of you, that's exactly what he has been doing in you. Maybe this weekend, he's put you flat on your back, like we say around here sometimes, so that you would finally be looking in the right direction. Hey, listen, I'm not trying to be too mystical but you understand that it is not an accident that you were here today. It's not an accident that you are listening.

You might have felt like it was a random invitation, a random invitation from a friend or that friend kept texting you this link and you were like, fine, just to get you off my back, I'll click it, I'll watch it for two minutes, that way I can say I watched it but now you're still here and you're still listening. C.S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. The best one of those is called The Horse and His Boy and in that one, Lewis tells a story of a boy running away but throughout the entire journey, as he runs away from his dad, he hears footsteps, the occasional roar in the distance.

C.S. Lewis said that he was putting into story form in this book how he, C.S. Lewis, experienced God pursuing him. He said, God was whispering to me in my pleasures, telling me there was something more. God was screaming at me in the desperate feeling that I had in my pain.

Can't you see this happening right now in your life? He loves you as he draws you back. That's what you're experiencing right now is he loves you as he draws you back. Number four, God loves you as he wraps you in his arms. God loves you as he wraps you in his arms. It says, verse, I'm not even sure what verse that is but wherever we are in the story.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran. Couple things here, first of all, that word compassion might be my favorite Greek word of all. If you've been around the summit, you've heard me tell you what it is before. The Greek word, splagma. And I say it like that on purpose. Because in Greek, it's onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia, where a word sounds like what it is, splash, crash, splagma means an emotion from the bowels, from the bowels, like from your gut down here.

It arises spontaneously, splagma. You wanna say it? I'll say it, you say it, okay, splagma.

Now, everybody at home too, don't just stare at the screen, splagma. If it doesn't sound like you're retching, you're not saying it right. It's a compassion that is just, comes from the deepest part of who you are. It's almost like you can't control it. This emotion this father feels comes from somewhere deep inside of him. He didn't have to think about it. It's almost like a reflex, it's instinctive.

This is not a calculated, all right, what's the right thing to do here kind of decision. This is what is naturally in the father's heart. All throughout the gospels, we find that phrase, and Jesus was moved, he was overcome with compassion, splagma. He was moved by compassion and he healed the people and he taught them. It was the most natural gut reaction that Jesus had in the presence of sin and suffering.

Remember the story of the woman who touched Jesus? And Luke says that Jesus felt the power go out of him, almost like he wasn't even cognizant of it when it happened. Almost like he wasn't in control of it, like it was a reflex.

I love how Dane Orland explains this. His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain. We saw this a few weeks ago in the story of Jesus healing the man that his friends lowered through the roof before they could even open their mouths.

Words of reassurance and healing just came tumbling out of Jesus' mouth. It's his natural instinct. He is love and kindness all the way through so that the most natural thing to him when he sees someone that he loves in pain is his heart, is just overcome with compassion. You say, well, wait a minute, doesn't God feel wrath about sin? Yes, but the point is that is not his first instinctive emotion. His first instinctive emotion is compassion.

I need you to understand that's what he feels for you this weekend. Second word to notice is that word ran. Grown men in those days did not run. Even in our day, grown men don't usually just run in public. You see a grown man running through the mall, it's either because he's just committed a crime or somebody's trying to commit a crime against him.

Well, see, that was especially true in those days. Running was considered undignified. Furthermore, men of stature wore robes. Robes are not good for running.

Nobody enters a marathon with a full ankle-length robe. To run, this man would have had to lift up the front of the robe and expose his knees, which doesn't seem like a big deal to us, but in those days, that was considered a nakedness. It was considered shameful. Yet the father seems oblivious to all of this. He's so overcome with compassion for his son that he's forgotten everything else.

Example I always like to use here is Jimmy Valvano in 1983 when NC State did the incredible and won the national championship after Lorenzo Charles caught an air ball shot by Derek Wittenberg, who to this day maintains it was a pass, not a shot, but you watch the tape, you can decide, and then Lorenzo dunked it at the buzzer, then buzzer goes off and Coach Valvano starts running around like a crazy person. I mean, look at, he looks insane. The thing is, he didn't care. He didn't care. What if you saw in that just a glimpse of the excitement that God would feel if you came home? The father embraced him and he kissed him.

He began to whisper in his ear assurances of his love. My wife, Veronica, tells a story. Thought she wandered away from God during her high school years. She grew up in a Christian home, but her love really grew cold and she just began to wander. So when I came down to go to college, she decided that was gonna be her break.

She was gonna leave the Christian faith behind. So she went to UVA that first semester and she said, I just was, this was me walking away from Jesus. She said, been there just a couple months and got invited by a friend to go on a Christian ministry retreat. She said, I'm not even sure why I went, but I'm positive that I was tricked into going.

Like, I had something about the beach and some friends and the next thing, you know, I was like, oh, by the way, there's a speaker and singer there also. And she said at the end of one of the talks, the subject of which she cannot even remember, she said the speaker asked the attendees to pair up and pray for one another. Veronica said, I'd never met the girl that was sitting next to me. We'd never had even a single conversation, but she began to pray out over me exactly what was going on in my life. This girl verbalized in prayer things she would have had no way to know. My fears, my questions, my sins, and then she began to pray the love of God into my life. Veronica said, I felt completely exposed. I knew in that moment that God was confronting me, revealing my brokenness, speaking his love, whispering his love into my ear. I was completely undone.

God had demonstrated to her that he knew her every secret and loved her anyway. What I'm telling you is that if you stop right now and you listen, I'm telling you, that is what God is whispering to you. Listen to him. You're sitting there right now and you're thinking, this is me. I'm telling you, you're right.

It is you. He's speaking to you. The son said to him, verse 21, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, by the way, did you notice that the son never got through his little prepared speech? He planned to tell his dad about this plan to become a servant, to work off the debt, and his dad just says, shut up. And then says to the servants, verse 22, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him.

Then put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost. Now he's found and they began to celebrate. Number five, God loves you as he baptizes you with grace and makes all things new. He gives his son three gifts. The first is a robe, and not just any robe, by the way. The best robe, which, by the way, the best robe would have belonged to the father. That means the dad was giving the son his own garment, a ring. This was a symbol of the family authority. He is immediately, the son is being restored to his status as a son with all the rights and privileges thereof. Sandals, sandals were a sign of wealth. Servants in those days did not wear shoes in the house.

Only sons did. In other words, not only did the father withhold punishment, the father bestowed gifts. It is the greatest word in the English language and the word that separates the Christian message from every other religious message in history, grace. God not only withholding from us the anger that we do deserve, but also showering us with multiplied goodness that we do not deserve. Where's the punishment? There's not even a word of mention of it. Who pays for the son's reckless living?

There's no talk of that either. By the way, the father had already given the son his full share of the inheritance, which means that all these new gifts are coming out of his own stores. The father absorbs the debt. Where's the shame? Shame's been removed. The only shame in this story is experience when the father lifts up his robe and runs after the boy. You can see this story gives us the smallest glimpse into how Jesus would save us in the cross. You see, the cross was Jesus running after us, covering us in grace. There at the cross, Jesus would take upon himself our shame. There he was gonna be beaten and spat upon and mocked.

The Romans always crucified criminals in public places to humiliate them. People walked by Jesus and taunted, save yourself, miracle boy. Looks like God doesn't think of you as my beloved son now, does he? There at the cross, Jesus absorbed the cost of your sin, sin incurred a penalty. But just like the father in this story, Jesus did not require that payment from you.

As the nails were driven into his hands and his feet, he was absorbing in your place that penalty into himself. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for my iniquities, paying the price so that I could be at peace with God. All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned every one of us to our own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Interestingly. And the part of Deuteronomy 21 that I quoted earlier, where it says that a rebellious son should be stoned, right after that, I mean literally right after it, Deuteronomy 21 says everyone who hangs on a tree will be considered cursed by God. It almost seems like a random insertion, like you're talking about one thing and then suddenly you throw in this other thing.

Just seems random. But see now on this side of the cross, we know that it's not random. Moses was prophesying some 1,200 years before Jesus that all of us, like that prodigal son, were gonna reject our father. And all of us were gonna bring that curse of death on ourselves and Jesus was gonna come and be hung up on a tree to suffer the curse and shame that we had incurred.

He was gonna absorb our curse and pay our penalty. At the cross is where Jesus took off the garments of our sin and clothed us in the robe of his righteousness out of his own closet. The cross is where Jesus placed on our finger the ring of a new life to as many as received him. To them he gave the right, the authority to be called the children of God. And that includes the authority, by the way, for you to overcome sin and evil by his power.

It means the power to put your family back together. It means the power to escape the curse and the addictions of sin. All that belongs to Jesus now belongs to you. The cross is where he put on our feet the sandals of a privileged position with the father so that we can come boldly into his presence like sons, not like servants. You see, at the cross, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.

He made the one who had not departed to be as one who had departed so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord. Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured.

There where the blood of the lamb was spilt. Y'all, if the cross had never happened, this whole parable would be just a quaint little story about a dad's love for his kid. But when you read this story in the light of the cross, you see that God is the true prodigal. God is the one who spent himself recklessly and extravagantly, who ran to you, who embraced you, and kissed and clothed you in power and grace.

By the way, I'm gonna show you this in just a second. But in Jewish culture, it was the responsibility of the older son to go out after a wandering younger son. This whole parable of Jesus is asking the Pharisees, why aren't you doing that? Jesus, in coming to earth, watch this, plays the part of the older brother also, going out after the lost son, even taking the death penalty that the younger son deserves. But the main point that I want you to see in all of this, listen, is that this whole story from start to finish is bathed in the love of God. God loved us when we rejected him. He loved us when we wandered. He loved us when he brings us back. He loves us as he baptizes with grace. See, a lot of times people talk about salvation as if it's this calculated theological transaction.

He paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt he didn't pay. It is not a calculated theological transaction. It is God's heartbroken pursuit of you. That is what has saturated the whole thing from start to finish.

He knew you and loved you before even the foundation of the world. His love, Dane Ortlund says, is not like a lightning strike in your life. It just occurs at one point at your conversion. It's like an avalanche.

It's like an avalanche that starts and just builds throughout your life. And the deeper you go into sin, the greater it is for you. And that's what God feels for you this morning.

Which leads me to two final quick things before we close. Number six, God loves you when you're too proud to receive his grace. Verse 25, watch this. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And the servant said to him, your brother's come home, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he's received him back safe and sound. Verse 28, but he was angry. And he refused to go in, so his father came out and entreated him.

But he answered his father, look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours comes home who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him. I was reading this story, by the way, to my family. And I'm like, okay, so one person was not happy that the son had come back. Who was it? And my son raised his hand and said, the fatted calf.

And I said, yes, that is also true. That's not exactly what I was thinking about. The fatted calf certainly had a bad day. But I was thinking more of the older son because he was angry. Verse 31, he said to him, son, you're always with me.

All that's mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. Y'all, this brother on the surface looks like the opposite of the younger son, right? He's the good boy.

But there's a subtle detail that you don't want to overlook. This older brother is also outside of the house. Do you notice the father has to go out to him also? He's actually got a lot in common with the younger brother. Both want the father's things, but neither really wants the father. Both want the father's inheritance, but neither wants to be like the father.

This older brother doesn't wanna be with his dad either. He resents his father's grace, and he has no desire to be like him. Who is Jesus directing this toward? Well, we know the occasion for him telling this story is it actually tells us in chapter 15, verse two. It says that the Pharisees and scribes were complaining.

This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. This story is Jesus' response to that. The Pharisees don't understand God's love for broken people because they don't see themselves as broken, but they are. What Jesus is teaching here is that there are two ways that you can stay separated from God, two ways. One, you can run off to the far country, like the younger brother, and just give yourself to reckless sin. The other way to stay separated from God is to stay near the house of religion and use rule keeping to cover up the fact that you're not like God and you don't really love him. In some ways, the religious brother is worse off because y'all, at least the younger brother knows that he needs redemption. The pride of the older brother keeps him from seeing how truly broken he is.

He's a stranger living in the house. You see, the Bible says all of us, religious or not, rich or not, cultured or not, educated or not, are hopelessly broken on the inside. And none of our religious deeds can change that. In fact, Jesus said religion just makes us like a whitewashed tomb. Clean and polished on the outside, but full of rotten flesh and dead men's bones on the inside.

And the more you try to clean yourselves up through religion instead of throwing yourself on the grace of God, the worse you make things. My second daughter, and I probably should not tell this story because I did not get her permission, but I won't tell you her initials, but her name is Allie. When she was four, she just disappeared to the bathroom for a long time. Now, you know, if a grown man disappears to the bathroom for a long time, that's not a big deal.

Takes a Motor Trend magazine, he's in there for a couple hours, no problem. But when you're four years old, that's an issue. So our friend Stacy, who was babysitting at the time, got a little bit worried. So she went over to the bathroom door and she put her ear next to it and she heard crying. She said she opened the door and she almost gagged because there was Allie standing there beside the toilet with, and I'm sorry if this is a little gross, but poop everywhere on her arms, on the sink, on her face. Stacy said, I don't understand how poop got on her face. And she said, Allie was just standing there crying, saying, I tried to clean myself up. I tried to clean myself up. See, that's what religion is.

Everything you do has the stench of death. You're gonna go up and apologize to Allie later. Said, sorry, I told this story. She doesn't mind self-defecating you, okay?

So she gave me permission on that. But the point is that religion never works. What you need is a change of heart. See, I got good news for you religious people. God loves you also.

He wants to give you that. You see, the story is an invitation. Do you notice the story never resolves? This cuts off abruptly in verse 32. What's up to verse 32, chapter 16? And so you're left asking, well, what exactly does the older brother decide? Does he receive his father's invitation to come in or does he stay outside of the house?

You don't know. Because the story is an invitation to older brothers, telling older brothers that the grace of God is for you also. He loves you even when you're too proud to receive his grace. And he stands ready to receive you the moment that you were humble enough to admit that you need him. So cast off your idolatrous and ridiculous pride and just confess that you are as broken and needy as the prodigal in the far country and receive his grace for you. And in a moment, we'll cure you of that arrogant, smug condescension that makes you feel better than other people. It'll make you a fundamentally different person.

And that leads me to our last point, number seven. You can choose to stay outside of God's love. You can choose to stay outside of God's love. Like I said, this story never really resolves because you can stay outside of God's house. Yes, God's love is overflowing and it's never ending, but he won't force it on you.

That means you can stay outside of the house. And if you choose to spurn his love, what choice does God have but to bring his judgment on you? Remember this verse from last week?

I showed you II Thessalonians 1.7. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, not as a prodigal father, not as a father going after a lost son or daughter, this time in flaming fire, he will inflict vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away forever from the presence of the Lord. For if you won't receive God's grace, then you gotta suffer the worst kind of eternal judgment.

And I'm here to plead with you and tell you that is not what he wants. Lamentations 3.33, he does not afflict from his heart. He does not from his heart grieve the children of men.

In other words, wrath and affliction don't come out of his heart. What he wants from his heart is to save you. What's in his heart is to bring you home and wrap you in his arms and pour out mercy on you. But see, you've gotta choose that.

He's not gonna force it on you. That means the most important question about your life that you will ever answer is simply, are you gonna come back to the father and receive that mercy? We want you to see today that if that's never happened to you, it can happen to you right now. If you ever received Jesus, why don't you bow your heads if you would at all of our campuses, in your homes.

If you're driving a car, you might wanna pull it over to the side of the road right now and just take a moment. Have you ever received Jesus? Friend, it's very simple. You come home. You come in and you say something like that young son said, I have sinned and I'm ready to come back to my father. And then you receive, there's a gift that he's given you, the gift of the robe of his righteousness and the ring of being a new son or daughter of his. Can you right now to say, Lord Jesus, I receive your grace and your salvation. To say it in your own words, Lord Jesus, I'm coming home and I'm receiving your offer to save me.

Listen, if you prayed that right now or you're praying it, every head's bowed, nobody's looking around. I want you right now to take the phone out, your phone out. I want you to text the word ready, R-E-A-D-Y to 33933. You can even sneak a peek up here right here at the screen. I'll put the number up there.

Text the word ready to 33933. As you're doing that, Summit, let me ask you this, who in your life needs to hear this message? Who do you need to run after? I mean, like Jesus explained, those who understand the grace they've received are anxious to see it extended to others. I can tell you for sure, one of two things is true about you this weekend. Either God is drawing you home or He is propelling you outward to go after lost sons and daughters in the far country. So let me ask this. If you know that you know Jesus, who in your life has God put on your heart?

We love to ask a question around here. We call it who's your one? Every Christian ought to have one person that they're reaching out to and praying for and trying to share the love of Christ with. If you're a Christian, who's your one?

Who's your one? Why not take a moment just to pray for them right now? Maybe even pray about asking them to listen to this message and discuss it with you. Father, we pray this would be a place of sweet and overpowering grace, marvelous grace, that lost sons and daughters would come home and that we would go out with the Father, with our true older brother Jesus, seeking those who are lost. God, may we decrease so that the Savior who seeks and saves might increase. We pray in Jesus' name.