I appreciate that special this morning. And as Brother Lucan said, it is true out West, you can live far away from people, but you feel a connection to them, a camaraderie with them. And back East, you're half an hour away from somebody and too far to go see them. So it's amazing how that works. Let's open our Bibles to Luke chapter 15 this morning. I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago of being down at a fellowship in Columbia. And I was very pleased to hear that Dr. Beal is going to be a speaker down there. And the choir came. How many of you were in that choir that were down there in Columbia? Did an outstanding job. I appreciate that. That was a highlight of the fellowship there. So I appreciate that. So thank you for your ministry there. I also want to share a hello from someone. We had a chance to, our men from our church went out to the Bill Rice Ranch this past weekend for a men's retreat, and there was a fellow there, he says, you look familiar. I said, well, I'm sorry, I can't do anything about my looks, you know, I just. He said, there's gotta be something. So we were talking to him, he says, Ambassador, you ever been to Ambassador? I said, yeah, I was here a couple years ago. He says, I was a student there, and I heard you preach in chapel. And so we were talking about that and he said, my fiance is still a student there. He said, would you give her a message? So here's the message. Daniel Adrian wants me to proclaim his love for Amanda Yule. Yes, I met her earlier. I didn't tell her that I was gonna say this. I have Daniel's permission to go on and on and embellish all of his feelings for you. But he did say he wanted to postpone the wedding three months and change the colors. Is that... Am I still on? I know she controls this. You know, that's... I think he just said hi, so that's... Sounds better, though, with all that other stuff, doesn't it? I want to say hi to my niece, Hannah. She's not responsible for anything I say or do up here, so don't blame her. Luke chapter 15, I want to preach a message to you entitled, Heavenly Rejoicing. This is the passage where we read of the prodigal son. And as I grew up, I was saved at an early age, heard many preaching, many sermons, a lot of preaching on this. And I think I missed an aspect of this. It probably was taught, I just didn't catch it. So it's not what's taught is caught, what is caught sometimes. But as we look at this, I want to look at this passage with an emphasis there that maybe we have missed. A familiar story. In fact, one lady in our church, she was at another church, and she said, you know, every time, she said, it seemed like our pastor, he was always, would preach at least once a year on the prodigal son. And his son was called to ministry and his first sermon he preached in the church was the prodigal son. She was tired of hearing about the prodigal son. And I hope that we don't have that impression today as we look at God's word. I hope we have a fresh interest and a fresh desire. The goal is when I leave today, after you forget who I am and the message, anytime you come back to this passage of scripture, you have anchored in your mind the meaning of what this says. You're going to forget personality, but you're not going to forget God's word. And so let's look at Luke chapter 15, and I'm gonna start reading in verse one. It says, then drew near unto him, this is Jesus, all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them, and he spake this parable unto them. Now notice before we get into the stories, we're familiar with the stories, notice the audience to whom Jesus is speaking. There's a contrast here, there are two groups and they were very distinct. Notice this, the first part is the publicans and the sinners. The publicans, as many of you know, were the Jewish people who were contracted by the hated Roman oppressors. They were being paid by the Romans, they were contracted, they were given, they were working for the Romans to collect taxes from their own fellow Jewish countrymen. How low can you stoop for your own personal profit? These publicans were viewed by the other Jews as treasonous. They were unpatriotic. Can you imagine somebody in America bad-mouthing America? You say, you're free to go anywhere you want. Why bad-mouth us here? But these publicans were thought of as unpatriotic. They're not standing for the Jewish people. They sided with the Romans. In fact, they were aiding and abetting the enemy. You think about in a time of war, a platoon or a group of soldiers cross into enemy territory and you have one guy in the group helping the enemy. That's intolerable. Republicans were hated. But then also you have the sinners. Everybody knew these were the sinners. We don't know exactly what they were. Maybe they were the ones that never showed up at the temple. Maybe they didn't go along with the laws that the Pharisees laid out for them. Maybe they had sunk down into the lowest depravity in their society. And they were known as their reputation, their activities. Everybody knew those people were sinners. If you go to any of those people say, hey, are you a sinner? Yes, I am. I'm a sinner. There's no denying it. Everybody knows it. I am a sinner. This was the worst of the worst. But you notice in verse two, there's another group of people here. These were the Pharisees and the scribes. This was the upper crust. These were not the sinners, but these were the saints, in their opinion. The Pharisees, they were meticulous in how they followed God's law. Did they love God's word? Oh yes, they followed it. And they would tithe to the very part of their spices. Can you imagine somebody coming to church and bringing a little package of salt with them? And say, I'm bringing my tithe of my salt today. I'm taking this seriously. They were meticulous. When they prayed, they let everybody know they prayed. They did it out so everyone could see, and they prayed for long, long periods of time. They were praying. And the scribes, it was their profession to study and to write and to copy and to teach the Word of God. These people were the saints, in their opinion. They were upstanding, reputable classes of religious leaders. If you were to ask one of these people, are you a sinner? Oh, no, no, no, not me. Those people over there, they're the sinners, not us, not our group of people. They depended on their obedience to the Bible to earn their righteousness. Really, that's what they were doing. They were earning favor with God. They weren't like these people. They didn't do all the bad stuff. They did all this good stuff. They hung out, look at their friends, who they had and who they associated with. These were upstanding saints. They were self-righteous. They were not willing to accept Jesus. In fact, as they came to hear Jesus speak, they came to see if he passed the test. They were judging or seeing if they would approve of Jesus. And in fact, they didn't realize they needed Jesus's approval for them. They need to come to him on his terms as opposed to them judging him on their own terms. And so as they noticed this, and they walked in, and they saw this, and it was very quick, they saw in their discernment, they saw there's some wicked people here, but not like us, and they're standing there, probably standing in the back row. Now, I'm not assuming anything today, if you're on the back row, you're wicked, so I'm not saying that. But these people were probably standing in the back, watching and observing, and they were murmuring. Verse two, and the Pharisees and scribes murmured, that's an onomatopoeia there, under their breath, kind of, you know how it is, you know this. They're not really saying it out loud for anyone to hear, just maybe to their fellow Pharisee or scribe here, look at this, look at this, can you believe this? We've heard so much about Jesus, look who he's with. This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. And Jesus, knowing this, started telling stories. Now, Jesus knows the group of sinners, and he knows the group of so-called saints. And as he tells these stories, it's amazing how Jesus, the master storyteller, could communicate on so many different levels. As he told these stories, the sinners understood exactly what he was saying, and their hearts rejoiced and were glad and encouraged. And at the same time as Jesus told these stories, these Pharisees were looking at each other saying, Where's he going with this? They understood as well. But look at these stories. We have three lost items here. We have the first, we have the lost sheep. And I'm so glad that Jesus understands who we are. Don't we all like stories? I mean, you can't start out a story any better than it was a dark and stormy night. And a shadowy figure slipped out from behind the tree. and stopped or not that's a good story that we like what's what's in that story i don't know the in the stories that's as far as i went so But Jesus tells stories and it gathers everything. In fact, even the murmurs in the back are kind of saying, huh, this is interesting, I can get into this. So he talks about, first of all, the lost sheep. Verse four, and what man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. Now this story started off, see I can understand, you have sheep and you lose one. It's an investment, it's a monetary advantage to go find your sheep. But as Jesus told this story, he always shocked people. There was something in the story that surprised them. And so when he found the sheep, he brought it home. He went through a lot of effort. He's out there searching and he's looking. But when he found it, he comes home. But then look at verse six. Something strange, he finds one dumb sheep that can't have enough sense to stay with the herd or the flock, I guess. Tell him a city guy. Verse six, he cometh home and what does he do? He calleth together his friends and neighbors saying unto them, rejoice with me for I found my sheep which was lost. Can you imagine an invitation? Come to my lost sheep party. It's a sheep. We're having a party for this? We're rejoicing, I'm excited! Calm down, it's just a sheep. There is excessive celebration in this story. These guys are saying, this guy, he must not get out much. I mean, you get excited about one sheep. This guy, he doesn't have many parties in his life here. But look at the point. Verse 7, he said, I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents. more than over 99 just persons, and I love this phrase, which need no repentance. He's cutting to the chase there. He said one worthless sinner causes more joy in heaven than 99 people who are righteous and don't need to repent? The answer is yes. There is heavenly rejoicing going on. So you can kind of see the Pharisees looking at each other and saying, What do you mean by that? Well, Jesus goes on. Second story, we have the lost sheep, we have the lost coin. Now, verse eight, either, here's another story, what woman having 10 pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently till she find it? You're talking about a very poor society whose homes would be probably half of the size of this platform here. And the lady has 10 coins to her name. That's it. And she loses one. Okay, now it's 10%. One sheep, that's 1% out of 100. One coin, that's 10%. Here's this lady, maybe absent-minded. You know, you lose your keys and you say, you know, where are my keys? You know, and it's amazing that whenever you lose something, you always find it the last place you look. It's funny how that works out. But this lady is diligent. She sweeps the house, maybe taking everything out of the house. She's sweeping and she's looking because, you know, where's that coin? It must've fallen here somewhere. And then finally, she goes to any effort necessary and she finds the coin. Look at verse nine. And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. Now this is getting ridiculous, isn't it? A lady, I mean, you ever drop a coin, you know, maybe you lose your keys. Now, we may panic if we lose our cell phone, right? Our life may end if that happens. In fact, I used to tell young people, you know, back in the 1900s when I was in high school, we did not have cell phones. Like, oh, how did you survive? It was rough, it was rough. We barely made it. But here this lady loses something and she finds it. She's thinking, I need to be more organized. I can't believe I lost this thing. She finds it. Here we go. She has a block party. Can you imagine inviting everybody in your neighborhood? Come to my house. I found my keys. Bring something with you. We're going to have a party. They're thinking, this lady's crazy. Excessive celebration. But again, Jesus is driving home a point. Look at verse 10. He says, Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of angel, in the angels of God over one sinner that repents. Now, you understand the attitude that God has towards sinners? God loves sinners. Luke 19.10 says, The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke 5.32 says, I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And Jesus is driving a point home that God loves sinners. But he goes on again, and here we have the lost sheep, we have the lost coin, and I want to say this one could be the lost sons. Plural. Lost sons. Verse 11, he said, a certain man had two sons. People call it the prodigal son. Well, that's one, we forget about the other one here. And he goes on, now again, the Pharisees are watching this, they're listening to this and saying, I don't know, hey guys, I think he's talking about us back there. They're kind of getting a little uneasy about this. Verse 12, Jesus says, and the younger of the two sons, the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. Here we see this son that has a shocking request. In fact, this is a shocking sin. For a son to speak that way to his father was blatant disrespect. In this culture, they didn't put up with teenage rebellion. That was not the norm. I hear some people say, well, you know, when your son's turned 13, yeah, you better be careful. They'll straighten out when they're about 21 or 22. It's like, what? Are we gonna just give them that time of their life just to go on their way? That's not the way it was in this culture here. For this son to come to his father and say, give me what I deserve. In fact, what he was saying to his dad was, the only reason I don't have your stuff is because you're still alive. When you die, I'm getting all of this stuff. Why don't you just give it to me now? Why don't you, you know, are you feeling okay, dad? Why don't you just go ahead and just die so I can get this? That's what he's saying here. This was a shocking, shocking sin. And you can hear a kind of a collective gasp go through. Oh, he said what? And then the shocking response. And it says in the last part of the verse, and the father and he divided unto them his living. He's not supposed to do that. This is unusual. This story has taken a strange twist here. And look at this, this son who has been blatantly disrespectful to his father. Look at verse 13. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country. And you think about what he inherited. His dad did not hand him a stack of $100 bills. His dad says, okay, All of my possessions, I'm gonna give you your part. See those fields over there? Those pastures, those are yours. The animals, those flocks over there, those are yours. The buildings, we have crops in the field. We're gonna be harvesting them, all of those are yours. My possessions, maybe he had some jewels, maybe he had some expensive clothing, and he gave him all this stuff. What's he gonna do with land? What's he gonna do with buildings and animals? He doesn't want this stuff. He wants the money. So it says, not many days after he gathered everything and left. You know what he did? He sold, he liquidated everything. Pennies on the dollars, probably. His father maybe had inherited things from his father and his father had been passed down. This is the land that he was going to inherit. And his dad says, son, it's now yours. Well, this son doesn't want any relationship with the father. He's sick and tired of him. He wants nothing to do with him. He wants out of there. So he liquidates this. Pennies on the dollar. I just met a man who I believe was his great-grandfather fought in the Battle of Bull Run, the Civil War. He was killed in that battle. It was General B. And this man who I was talking to, this is past week, and says he owns, he possesses the sword that his great-grandfather used in that battle. That was pretty neat. He said he was talking to a man who was into Civil War reenactment, and he found out that he owned this sword. And he said, I tell you what, he said, if you want to give me that sword, he said, you go down to the local car dealership, buy any car you want, and we'll call it an even trade. That's tempting. What kind of car would you get? Camaro? Corvette? Pickup truck? Hummer, what would you get? This man says, no thank you. This is worth more to me than a new car. It's been handed down from my great-grandfather. I plan to pass it on to my son and keep it there. This son right here, he didn't care anything about that. He wanted to liquidate it. Can you imagine that sword? Somebody said, hey, I'll give you $1,000 for that. Sure, it's yours. Hey, I got $1,000. This is great. So he liquidates this, he gathers all together, he took his journey into a far country. He wanted to get away from this. He was tired of the way he'd been brought up. All this that he had to do, and his father and his brother, his whole system, he wanted out of there. He gathered everything, went away into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. This idea of no rules to just party as much as you possibly can. Be like saying, hey, let's have an activity next week. Let's have a snowball fight next week. Say, where are we going to get snow? Say, I'll truck it in from Colorado. Better yet, we'll fly it in. You know, we'll just fly it in and just dump it all over the place. Say, how much is that going to cost? Don't worry about cost. You know, money was not an issue. He had money all over the place at that time. He is riotously living, he's spinning, he's squandering. And you notice these Pharisees are saying, This isn't going well. This is a bad son. He's treated his father horribly. And he's having a good time out there. This isn't right. This isn't good. I don't like this story, Jesus. But you notice in chapter 14, the story turns. Verse 14, I'm sorry. Chapter 15, verse 14. And when he had spent all. That is a scary, scary thought. Not only is there no money in your wallet, your credit cards are maxed out, or there are no credit cards, nothing in the bank. You have nothing. Say, hey, you want to go to McDonald's? I have nothing. Well, you can get something, 99 cents. I have nothing, no money whatsoever. Not only that, that would have been bad enough, But then there arose a mighty famine in the land. In America, we don't understand famines. I remember I went on a missions trip when I was in college, and it was probably the first time in my life that I did not have 24-7 access to a refrigerator. You say, what's the big deal? Well, you get hungry about 10 o'clock at night. And 11 o'clock. No, no, no. and not having food available. That was a, can I say, I mean, I'm saying this jokingly, it was a trial in my life. I had to wait from supper time to breakfast time to eat. Oh my goodness, that was rough. The guys are saying, that's right. The girl's saying, what? The guy's saying, that's right, I understand. But we don't understand a famine. You go to the refrigerator, there's nothing in there. You go to the grocery store, there's nothing there. You go out to a farmer who's growing something. There's nothing there. There's nothing. It's a famine. You read in the Old Testament about Samaria being besieged and there's a famine. And they were paying top dollar for dove's dung or an ass's head. You think about that for lunch. That's disgusting. That was the luxury of that time. In fact, they were killing and eating their own children. I mean, that's disgusting stuff. But that is what a famine is like. And here is this man, he spent all of his money and now there's a famine. There's nothing. And it began to be in want. It's going downhill from here. The story is getting worse. He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. He's outside of Israel. He's in a foreign country and there is a citizen there that had a little bit of privilege there. As soon as he joined himself, that word is the idea of of, uh, I need a job, and the guy says, no, no, I don't have anything. He said, please, I need a job. No, I'm telling you. And he bugged the guy, and he followed the guy around, said, listen, I'm not leaving you alone. Please give me something. He joined him. He followed this guy. He's bugging him and begging him, and finally said, okay, just go feed the swine out there. Just go do that. So finally he had a job, but he's watching swine, something that was Disgusting for a Jew. It broke ceremonial law. This was unheard of for a Jew to do this. And he's watching them. He's in the fields feeding swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine eat. Now growing up, I heard this. I heard people, and this was probably as a very young child. They said, oh man, this is really disgusting. You know what pigs eat? They eat slop. And this guy, he was almost tempted to eat slop. That's not what the verse says. He would have loved slop at this time. It was husks. It was a fibrous plant that if a human being were to try to chew and to swallow, it would cut their esophagus. They could not, humanly speaking, eat this food, but the pigs could. They could chew it up, they could swallow it, they could digest it. So here he is in great need and great famine. You say, why didn't he kill the pig and eat the pig? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. That may have been an option too, I don't know. But he could not, he was looking at what they're eating and said, I wish I could be eating what they're eating. In a famine, everything that humans can consume are taken away. And then we come down to verse 17, and this is the bottom of the descent for him. He had been living a wicked life, a rebellious life, but from the outward appearance, it looked like he was doing fine. In fact, he was getting away with it. He was living a prosperous life, a righteous life. He was having all the fun. It looked like he was getting away with his sin, but guess what? Sin always catches up with you. Look at verse 17, it says, and when he came to himself. Isn't that an interesting phrase? Where was he if he wasn't with himself? You know, that's the nature of sin, that sin will deceive you. You are living in a distorted reality when you're living in the life of sin. You think, this is wonderful, this is good, this is fun. No, it's not. It's destroying you. I remember seeing pictures on our television in Oklahoma about someone that was arrested for drug possession and they put their picture up there and I'm looking at a woman who I would have guessed were in her early 60s and find out she's in her early 20s. The lifestyle of sin was destroying her. It's amazing how sin is presented to us as It's enjoyable, it's preferable over God's rules. I mean, God has this for you, but that's no fun. This is a lot more fun. And sin is presented that way, and we are so deceived, and we're involved, and many times we give in to that temptation, but it's amazing that we have to come to ourself. The blindness of sin had been removed from his eyes, and the thought hit him. What am I? doing he came to himself and here as we read verses 17 and 18 we see repentance demonstrated to us here repentance is a change of mind Before Christ, we were living in our sin, loving our sin, following sin, and there was a time when the Holy Spirit convicted us, we said, this is not right. This, what I'm doing, is earning my spot in hell. God's wrath is on this, and we change our mind, and that's when we put our faith in Christ, and that's when He converts us and brings us back to Himself. But repentance is a change of mind. So here He is out there, He doesn't want anything to do with His Father, He's living for sin, Verse 17, this is the repentance. He came to himself and said, now listen to this attitude change here. He says, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare? And I perished with her. Now what he's saying is a hired servant was the lowest of the society. You had slaves who lived with their master. The master provided for their food, their clothing, their shelter. They took care of them. The hired servant was the master would go outside and he would look for someone in the market. He said, would you come work for me for today? Maybe it's maybe one or two days, and at the end of the day, he would give him money, but he wasn't providing clothing, he wasn't providing shelter, he wasn't providing anything other than, I'm paying you this amount for today's work. And what he is saying is, you know, my father treats the lowest of the low better than what I'm dealing with right now. In fact, you know, my dad's not such a bad dad after all. You know, I griped and I complained about how I was raised and all these rules that my dad made. He's forced me to do all this stuff. I'm just sick and tired of this. And he leaves and he repents and he says, you know what? My dad is a good man. He's a just man. He treats people fairly. He even treats the hired servants this way. He has changed his mind. Look what he says, and before he says, I just want the stuff. Dad, I don't want a relationship. I just want the possessions. Look at verse 18. He says, I will arise and go to my father and I will say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. He said, you know what, I did you wrong, dad. My conversation with you, that was horrible. And look, he says, because of that, I deserve the consequences of my sin, he said, verse 19, I am no more worthy to be called thy son. He said, I have blown it, dad. Just make me as one of thy hired servants. Just let me stay outside the gate. And if you need some work done, would you come out and hire me every once in a while? And I don't even deserve that. But would you be gracious to me? And he arose, and he came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion. And he ran and he fell on his neck and he kissed him. You know, here the father is demonstrating what God the father does to us, does he not? And I tell you that all of us have sinned against our God. And we deserve punishment. It's only by the compassion of God that he saves us. And you see the father's response. He had compassion. You know, he never stopped having compassion. But you know, he wasn't going to force his son to have a relationship with him. He allowed his son to make choices, knowing it was gonna be hurtful to him, but he had to come to a place where he realized that he was a sinner and he had to come back with a repentant attitude. But the father, he arose, verse 20, he arose, came to the father, but in verse 21, I'm sorry, verse 20 here, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. He had been looking for him and had compassion and ran. Now, this is unheard of. Here is the father, did nothing wrong. It's this wicked, horrible ingrate of a son. He is the one that ought to come crawling back to the father. But the father ran. You know, dignified men don't run. You ever see a president of the United States or a foreign, whatever, prime minister, they don't run. They walk. Very dignified-like. And here goes the father running through the town. They're like, what's he doing? This is not like him. He's lost all dignity. But he was so overcome with his son coming home. He had compassion. He fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son, he's got his prepared speech. We know what he's gonna say, verse 18. In verse 21, the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven in thy sight, am no more worthy to be called thy son. And he had another part of his speech he was planning to give. But the father cuts him off. He says, you're repentant, you've returned. He says, the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe. You know, he's not going to be a hired servant outside the gate. He's welcomed into the family. He has this robe of ownership. He is now, that's a symbol of the family. He's back in the family. He's got the robe on. I just marvel at God's righteousness. He puts us in robes of righteousness. We don't deserve that. It's through the Father's mercy and His grace. And He put on him, He put a ring on his hand. That's inheritance. The ring of authority now. He's got the authority of the Father on his hand. And He says, put shoes on his feet. Servants don't wear shoes many times. It's the sons who wear the shoes. He is restored. He says, bring hither the fatted calf and kill it. The calf, when you think about a calf, it's supposed to be better meat, but it's a waste in the sense that if you allow, you think about the poundage of a calf, you allow just a short period of time, he's going to grow and double in weight, there's going to be more meat there, there's going to be a lot more available, but the fatted calf is the sacrifice for the tenderness of the meat. It was a special meal, the fatted calf, to let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and he is found and they began to be merry. Again, excessive celebration. Remember the lost sheep, the lost coin? Again, this ingrate of a son, worthless son, comes home and the father gets this excited about it? I didn't understand this until I realized this is not describing the merit of the son. This is displaying the generosity and the love of the father. This son didn't deserve this. This is the generosity, the love that the father has for anyone that repents and comes back to him. Now as the Pharisees are listening and watching this, you can see they're crossing their arms. They're saying, This is not the way it should be. This guy should be out there in the courtyard. This guy, he's done everything wrong. He's gotta pay for his sin. There's gotta be some consequences. This is not right. The father's made a mistake. This is not good. You can just see them back there. I don't agree with this story. I do not like this story at all. Jesus keeps on going. Remember, there are two sons. And this is what I wanna focus on this morning. His elder son was in the field. And as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked, What these things meant? And he said unto them, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go in. Therefore came his father out. and entreated him, and he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment, and yet thou never gavest me a kid, a little animal to eat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son, not my brother, thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. You know, this son had the same problem as the other son. Did he not? There was no relationship with the father. He was there, he was busy, he was serving, but he was the self-righteous son. Look what I'm doing. Didn't you notice this? I'm not like this guy over here. That son's the bad son. I'm the good son. I deserve this. I'm self-righteous. Look at what I have done. Jesus was pointing to the Pharisees back there. So you think you're self-righteous. You think you're better than these sinners. You don't have a relationship with God. Here is the son out in the field and all of the elaborate details have to go on to throw a party like this. The son doesn't even have a clue what's going on. He's not involved with the father. He doesn't know what's going on. In fact, he's angry. He's saying, Dad, you're making the wrong choices. I mean, if I were running this place, it'd be totally different here. You're making the wrong choices, Dad. He's angry with what his father is doing. This revealed he did not have a relationship with his father as well. But the father graciously comes out to him as well. We had one son who repented. and came back, he was rejoicing. And notice here, verse 31, he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet, it was appropriate, it was right that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found. And we look over at the other son and say, what is his response? And we don't know. Did he repent? Did he say, Dad, I'm sorry. I've been thinking wrong. I've been treating you wrong. I haven't had the relationship that I need to. Please forgive me. Did he do that? We don't know. This is a cliffhanger. Did he repent? Did he not repent? And the Lord stops right at a critical moment because what he's saying here is the end of the story is up to you, Pharisees. You're the self-righteous ones. You think yourself are better than all these other wicked sinners. You deserve God's favor by all the stuff that you're doing. You need to repent. But then he leaves it. And the question is, will you repent? I think this is directed toward unsaved people, but I think also this can be directed towards believers. We can be saved. Myself, I was saved at an early age, probably before I turned four years old. And I look at three-year-olds or four-year-olds and say, how could I know? I knew I was a sinner. I asked Jesus to save me, simply trusting that. And you know, I grew up as a good kid. Never drank alcohol, never been to a movie theater, never used profanity, never done drugs, never, you know, the list could go on and on and on. And in high school, I was pretty proud of my spirituality. I was a good kid, not like those bad kids. And it wasn't until my senior year in high school and then beyond that, and especially marriage, how it's amazing how God works in your life through marriage. He revealed the wickedness of my heart. Yeah, I hadn't done all that stuff out there. Doesn't make me any more righteous. I have less consequences to deal with in my life. I'm thankful for that. But I wonder today, I don't know your background. Some of you may be saved from a pretty wicked background. I don't know. I would suspect that many of you were saved at an early age and the Lord has protected you. Don't slip into self-righteousness. When you leave here, you're gonna be surrounded by sinners. In fact, you're in Bible college with all sinners. See, but I'm not as bad as that person over there. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. We have a tendency to say, I'm pretty good. In fact, when God saved me, He picked a good guy to be on His team. Have you ever thought that? Say, no, I'd never think that. It creeps in. We need to understand, there's nothing in us that deserves God's salvation. But you don't understand, I make straight A's. So what? God used a donkey to talk. He has given us our ability and we have to work at what He's given us. Don't be self-righteous. God loves sinners. We're gonna find people that are coming into our churches on the job, they're gonna be filled with the effects of the world in which we live. They're being taught all kinds of stuff from an early age in this. They're not thinking in the biblical way, but that's okay. God loves sinners. If they repent, God will rejoice over that. So I guess there's two points today. Don't lose your love for sinners. And number two, guard against the idea of being self-righteous. What a wonderful story. I pray that we will not forget that. And every time we read that, we'll say, Lord, help me not to be the second son in there. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your kindness and your love, your compassion. Lord, we can be so harsh, so critical. We can cut people off if they don't match up with what we think they ought to be. Lord, help us to never lose our compassion for sinners. Lord, we thank you that your compassion has reached me as a sinner, Lord, and as being saved for over 40 years, I still have to come to you on a regular basis. Lord, please forgive my sin. And we thank you for your mercy and your compassion. And we pray for these young people who are coming from different backgrounds, They're headed in different areas of ministry, different geographical places, maybe some on foreign fields, maybe some in the United States, Lord. Some, Lord, whatever you have for them, help them to be faithful. Lord, pray that you'd help us to be guarded against this self-righteousness where we think we deserve something from you. Help us to realize the sinfulness of our sin. We would think the way you'd have us to think, and we do love you, we thank you for your compassion, in your name we pray, amen.