Coming Home
Notes
Transcript
Pastor and Evangelist Michael Cocoris, in his book Evangelism: a Biblical Approach, tells the story of a time when he was conducting a “rap” session with high school teenagers (in essence, he was hosting an AMA).
Their questions were typical of ones he had received in similar sessions scores of times before. As the session drew to a close, one girl toward the back, who had not said anything, raised her hand. Michael nodded, and she said, “The Bible says God loves everybody. Then it says that God sends people to hell. How can a loving God do that?”
The room went silent. He gave her his best answer, and she came back at him with arguments. He answered her arguments, and she answered his answers. The conversation quickly degenerated into an argument. He did not convince her, nor did she convince him. After a few more questions he dismissed the session.
After the session Pastor Michael approached the young woman and said, “I owe you an apology. I really should not have allowed our discussion to become so argumentative.” Then he asked, “May I share something with you?” She said, “Yes.” So he took her through a basic presentation of the gospel.
When he got to Romans 3:23 and suggested that all of us were sinners she began to cry. It was then that this high school senior admitted she had been having an affair with a married man. Pastor Michael quickly realized her opposition wasn’t on the grounds of whether God was good nor not. The reason she did not believe in hell was because her guilt and shame had overtaken her. In her heart she knew she had sinned. Her conscience condemned her, but rather than face the fact of her guilt, she simply denied any future judgment or future hell.
Sometimes we get off-track and start doing things we know aren’t right. And when that happens, most of us feel a sense of guilt and shame, just as the girl did in the story.
Guilt is that feeling of remorse and regret at your actions. It’s says, “I should have done better.” Shame is that feeling of self-loathing because of your actions. It says, “I am the worst - unworthy of love and acceptance.”
I have felt both of those. Not too long ago, I hurt someone I loved and I still feel the fallout from that even today. Once my sin was exposed, I felt the guilt of what I did - the remorse and the regret - and I still feel it today. But I also felt the shame of it, that I should have known better, done better and am a bitter disappointment to people.
Feeling guilty can do one of two things to us: it can cause us to examine ourselves and our actions and lead us to repentance and growth OR it can mutate into shame which then attacks our identity and hardens our heart.
I wonder how many of us here today have experienced both guilt and shame in our lives?
As we start this new teaching series called “You Belong,” we are looking at this idea that no matter what you have done, or gone through, you belong with Jesus.
And todays passage, which because of it’s timeless nature and powerful message of hope has become one of the most famous teachings of Jesus, speaks to that part of us that feels guilt and shame because of what we have done.
The story of the Prodigal Son, which Sara read for us earlier, is an invitation to come back home.
When we wander away from God and try to live in a way that puts us first, instead of him, it’s like running away from home.
But we are invited to come back home to God and today’s passage gives us three reasons WHY you should come home:
1. The Father WANTS you to come home
1. The Father WANTS you to come home
From both examining my own feelings when I have sinned and from talking with countless others, I think a lot of us feel like God is ashamed of us when we sin.
Some of this comes from your church background. Some of you grew up in churches that placed a high value on Holy Living and was very judgmental of sin. Therefore you learned to hide your sin and you internalized the idea that God is like the church leaders who shamed people who sinned.
Some of it comes from those who grew up with really stern parents, who were very focussed on behaviour. Early on you understood that you had to be good to be accepted and to sin, or even to make a mistake, means you would be shamed.
And that shame keeps us from going to God. Some of you were taught that if you sin, it meant that other people would reject God if they found out about it. So you just buried your sin and kept the happy, holy, smiling face up all while dying a bit inside. For others, the shame you experienced created a fear that God was going to punish you and didn’t like you anymore.
But God actually WANTS you to come home to him.
9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
How do we know that God wants us to come home to him? Look at the Father in the story:
1. The Father was seeking his son / / set in the context of looking for the lost // the father is looking down the road, hoping, waiting.
2. The father ran to the son while he was on the way / / Men in that culture did not run - t was undignified / / The father ran to the son because he wanted the Son to come home.
And that’s how God feels about you. God is waiting for you. He’s on the lookout for you, hoping that you will come back home.
14 Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.
Far from being disappointed in you, or ashamed of you, he loves you and WANTS you to come back.
The second reason we should come home to God is that…
2. God’s love is greater than your sin
2. God’s love is greater than your sin
The extent of the son’s sin // inheritance rules / / he wished his father dead to his face.
And when he left, he lived in a way that continued to dishonour his father. He didn’t go out and make a good life for himself. He participated in wasteful living, blowing through all the money on partying.
What the Father could/should have done:
18 “Suppose a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they discipline him. 19 In such a case, the father and mother must take the son to the elders as they hold court at the town gate. 20 The parents must say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and refuses to obey. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his town must stone him to death. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you, and all Israel will hear about it and be afraid.
Yet, when he did come back, his father’s reaction was the complete opposite. First, he welcomed him.
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.
Second, the Father restored the to his former role and share
22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet.
The son came home a beggar, in rags, and instead of accepting his son as a servant, he took him back as a son. The robe and ring were symbols of authority. Even though he sinned against God and his father, his inheritance and his identity as a child of the Father are restored.
The Father’s love was greater than the son’s sin.
And God’s love for you is greater than your sin. The proof? Jesus.
When Jesus died for you and I, he made a way for us to be reunited with God. Now we too can say, “I have sinned against God” and we can be forgiven of our sin, embraced by our father and restored to our role as the beloved children of God.
4 But—When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, 5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.
3. Coming home = life for your soul
3. Coming home = life for your soul
1 Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.
That’s our experience too, isn’t it?
When we are lost in sin and disobedience, our flesh chases high after high, but our hearts become hard and there is just something in our spirit that feels like something is wrong.
Those sins that seem most sweet in life will prove most bitter in death. - Thomas Brooks
But when we come home, God forgives us and takes us from spiritual hardness, apathy and death and gives us life
Luke 15:23–24 (NLT)
We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’
When he was in his sin, the son was spiritually, if not physically, dead. But now that he has come home, he found life. The same is true for you. You can come home and find life for your soul. Jesus said,
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The story of the prodigal son teaches us that God WANTS us to come home, that God’s love for you is greater than your sin against him or others, and that if you come home, you will find life for your souls.
What does it look like to come home? How do we get back home to God? Again, the prodigal son has wisdom to share with us:
1. Come to the end of yourself
16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
You need to get to that place where you take stock of where you are and realize that it’s time to make a change.
Are any of you at that place?
2. See the goodness of God the Father
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger!
No matter what you have been going through or what you have done, you can hold on to the truth that God is good - that he WILL take you in, care for you, and love you.
3. Repent
18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you,
The Prodigal son stood up, left the life he was leading and walked back to the Father. That’s what repentance is - changing direction from life the way you were living to relationally re-connecting to God and living life his way.
But I want you to notice two things in the son’s repentance :
First, the son took responsibility for his sin. He didn’t make excuses - he owned up to his mistakes (“I’ve sinned…”). We need to do that too. We need to take responsibility for the ways we hurt people without making excuses or rationalizations. We need to acknowledge what we did and what the impact of it was.
Second, the son realized that his sin was actually two-fold - that the sin he did against his Father was also a sin against God. Because in Matthew 22 God ties loving him with loving our neighbours together, we have to realize that when we sin against a person, we also sin against God and we need to confess and repent to both of them.
And while we can’t ever know how others will respond, we do know how God responds:
9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
Story of Hannah “sneaking out” and swimming in the bog / / I rushed in to save her and when I got her home, I washed the “sin” off of her / / just like Jesus.
Are you ready to come home to the Father?
Conclusion (invite worship team)
Earlier I mentioned how I hurt someone and how I experienced feelings of guilt and shame. This passage reflects my journey in that almost perfectly. I took responsibility for my sin and I confessed to the person I hurt, just like how the prodigal took responsibility and confessed his sin. I made restitution to show my repentance was real. And I was forgiven completely.
But I still struggled with the shame and guilt for a long time afterwards. And upon reflection, it was because I missed something. I missed that I also sinned against God who loves the person I hurt. And so I needed to come back to God and bring it before him and receive not only his forgiveness, but his restoration.
Just because I sinned, I am not cast out and rejected and unworthy of love. The story of the prodigal son reminds me that I am a forgiven and restored son of God my father. So the time of guilt or shame is over - now is the time to revel in the joyful celebration that my Father has prepared for me because even though I was lost, now I am found.
Are you ready to come home? If you are pray with me:
Lord Jesus Christ, I confess my sinful nature and longing after the things of this world. I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done and by what I have left undone. I have not loved You with my whole heart; I have not loved my neighbors as myself. Guide me, O Lord, along the right path all the days of my life. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Forgive me, renew me, and lead me, so that I may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
