Skip to content The Sposed-To Sunday - Come Home, Part 3 Apr 18 · 49 min ...more
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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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0:04 Lord, what have I done? I've been doing what I want and living on my own terms. I've disregarded your plan for my life, and I feel lost.0:16 For years, I've wrestled with this decision. I've told myself it's far too late. I've gone too far. But today, I'm ready to come home.0:32 Good morning. Happy Easter Waters Church. How many know that Jesus is the main event on this morning?0:44 Not just this morning but every morning and it is a wonderful privilege to be here with you. The weather is getting warmer. The sky is getting brighter and Jesus is alive. Amen. Amen.0:56 Welcome to everybody here for the first time. My name is Tim. I'm the location location. I'm the pastor of this church and I'm so glad to have that opportunity. It is a privilege and an honor to bring you the word of god1:06 today and we want to say good morning and welcome to our locations, Apollo Beach, Woonsocket, Guatemala, future south coast location, Norwood. Anyone else watching around the world online and on YouTube, let us know1:17 where you're watching from in the comments below. Like, subscribe. We appreciate it. And everybody here is gonna let you know we love you and you are part of us. Come on, let's welcome them in. And you welcome us in.1:29 Welcome home. I'm in a message series. I'm closing out a message series called Come Home. And we've been looking at the story of the prodigal son, Jesus' most potent, most memorable, most beloved story in all of1:41 scripture. I want you to take out your Bibles if you have a Bible. Hopefully, you do. If you don't have a Bible on you, take out a smartphone and go to a Bible app. If you want to download 1 real quick because you feel
1:51 guilty right now, go ahead and do it. In house, we have these notes that we hand you on the way in. Make sure you pull them out and fill in the blanks. And we will have some things to share about
2:03 Easter today. We are talking about Easter. And the title of my message is the theme of my message, the supposed to Sunday. The supposed to Sunday
2:14 and Luke 15 is where we're gonna go in just a moment. So, make sure that you get there with your Bibles as soon as you can. Some days are supposed to days. Is anybody like me that you always forget what
2:26 day you're supposed to put out the trash receptacles? Anybody like me on that? I forget. I have 2 reminders in my phone. 1 in the morning, tomorrow's trash day. 1
2:38 in the evening, tonight put out the trash because tomorrow's trash day and still I forget what day. I was supposed to put out the trash cans. I wake up, my head comes off the pillow.
2:50 Oh, That's today. I run outside and the truck is already gone. And so there you go. I have to find somewhere else to dump my trash. Forgive me if I've used a dumpster somewhere near you. Anyway,
3:04 how many know there are supposed to seasons? Like December is the supposed to what season? Supposed to? Buy Buy Y'all celebrate Christmas around here? I don't know.
3:17 Christmas shopping season. July fourth coming up. That's supposed to set off illegal fireworks. Stay. How many love you some illegal fireworks in
3:29 Massachusetts? Hopefully, you're not sitting next to a police officer right now. Then 2 days ago, I don't know if you were knew this, but it was supposed to file your taxes day.
3:42 Yeah. Some of you are like, I gotta leave church right now. I forgot about that. And then all the husbands in the house, you know that there is 1 day of the year that you can't afford to forget. All the husbands. What
3:53 day? Mother's Day. Leave and cleave my friend. Leave and cleave your anniversary for
4:05 every man is different. And if you forget that day she's supposed to not give you sex that night. Come on, you know what I'm talking about. You gotta remember that day. That day is important. Supposed to day. That's the
4:16 supposed to day. Was supposed to tell show my wife that I really really love her on that day. Amen. Well, every day but nonetheless. There are supposed to days all throughout the year. This is the supposed to go to
4:27 church day. The supposed to go to church day. It's Easter. It's supposed to. And I wonder who's here today simply because you're supposed to. Like, you know, you weren't here last weekend and
4:39 you're probably not gonna be here next weekend, so I don't feel bad about offending you for the next 45 minutes. And this is the day, this is the day that we're supposed to remember that Jesus is alive. We're supposed to
4:51 celebrate. We're supposed to be excited. But I wonder who here, man, you started your life with God so on fire, so excited. But but somewhere along the way, you kinda tapered off in the excitement. You kinda got a little
5:02 bit into the routine of life. Or maybe you had kids, or maybe you got married, or maybe you got a new job, or maybe you got just so overwhelmed with life. And before you knew it, what used to be a get to Sunday, I get to
5:14 worship Jesus, I get to go and celebrate the lord is alive, became a supposed to day. Became a day where, oh yeah, it's Easter. We're supposed to go. Let's go. Let's pack up the kids. Come on. Let's get into the car.
5:26 Let's try not to fight on the way to church. God, you know that you do that, right? You fight all the way. Cats and dogs. Come into the church. Hi, how are you?
5:38 Happy Easter. Good to see you. That's what we do. It's supposed to Sunday and and I want to talk to the supposed to saints today because like Chris just said up here in North Honorable and I'm sure
5:50 Kenny and and Jim and the other location pastors have talked about this. We do this every week. Every week, Jesus is alive. Yes.
6:01 Week, Jesus saves. Every week, we get to celebrate that this life might stink but it is not the final act in our story. There is coming a
6:13 great redemption. Jesus is gonna crack the sky. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the lord to the glory of god the father. I'm excited for that day. I don't got
6:25 to. I don't I don't have to worship Jesus. I get to worship Jesus. Amen. And I want to encourage you to come back. We're going to start a series called Last Days next week. You don't want to miss that series
6:36 but but I just I wanna just say this, and like I said, I don't feel bad about offending the supposed to people today because it's possible to be in church and miss heaven. It's possible to go to church on your supposed
6:47 to days and not even make it to the courts of heaven. I don't want that for you and neither does the Lord. And we're talking about Luke 15, probably Jesus' most famous story. Luke 15, the story of a father and
6:59 2 sons, and we call this story the story of the fill in the blank. Prodigal son. Yeah. But it's actually the story of 2 prodigal sons.
7:11 2. Not 1. 2. The first 1 is the obvious 1, the rebel. The 1 who says dad I want my inheritance now, I want you dead and I want my life. I wanna do my life on
7:23 my terms and I'm gonna go out there and get myself a life without you because you have held me back long enough And I don't know who I'm talking to in all of our locations, but there's a few rebels in the house, I'm
7:34 sure. A few rebels? Any rebels in the house? You're scared to say it, aren't you? You're scared. You don't wanna be judged. You know why
7:45 you don't wanna say anything? Because you're probably sitting next to an older brother or an older sister because remember that boy came to himself. He ran out. He got wild and wasted and
7:57 wasted his father's possessions and slept around and did all the things the devil convinces us is so much fun and he ended up feeding pigs. He ended up enslaved like a lot of you. You were
8:09 enslaved. You started out thinking, let me just smoke that, let me just drink that, let me just go there, and then before you knew it, were stuck, trapped, enslaved to what was formerly fun. And the Bible says that
8:21 he came to himself and he realized that his father's servants had it better than him. And so he made a pact. He made a commitment. I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna hire myself out to my father. He has this prepared
8:31 speech and it's a beautiful story. Father, I've sinned against heaven against you and I'm no longer worthy to call your son. Make me like 1 of your servants and he's on the way back to the house and he only gets these
8:39 words out because the father runs him and he only gets the words, father, I've sinned against heaven and against earth and he can't even say, make me like 1 of your servants. The father interrupts him because he's not
8:48 gonna make him a slave. He's gonna restore him as a son. He says, quick, quick, bring the best robe, put it on and put sandals on his feet, ring on his finger and kill the fattened calf because my son is alive
9:00 again. Let's celebrate because God loves to throw a party. You know why you love parties? Because you're made in the image of God who has a party planned
9:12 for the end of the world when all this mess is over, we're going to the marriage supper of the lamb, it's the heavenly wedding banquet and we're gonna celebrate until forever in Jesus name.
9:24 Yeah, that's the end. That's how it ends. It ends with a party, and the party is going on, and we love that story because some of us were rebels, and some of us were prodigals, and we came back, and we resonate with that
9:34 story. We love that story, and maybe you're here, and you're the prodigal, and I don't want you to miss the fact that God is always ready and willing to forgive you. Always.
9:46 You can't out sin the grace of God. I don't know who I'm talking to, but you need to hear that. You can't out sin God's grace. Where sin increases, grace increases all the more, Romans chapter 6
9:58 says. So you can't out sin God, and he is ready and willing to forgive you as soon as you come home. Wants to throw a party for you. But then there is this other boy in the
10:10 story and we're gonna talk about him. Would you stand with me at all of our locations? Stand with me for the reading of God's word. Why do we stand every Sunday? Because when we read this text, do not read the words of
10:20 men. We read the words of God. And so in honor of that, we say, speak Lord. And here's what it says in verse 25 of Luke 15. Now his older brother or his older
10:31 son, sorry, was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called to 1 of the servants and asked what these things meant. And the
10:43 servant said to him, 'Your brother has come home and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound. But he was what? Angry. And
10:55 he refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him. But he answered his father, look, these many years I have served
11:07 you and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when the son of yours comes who has wasted your
11:19 property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him. And he said to him, son, or in the Greek, my child, you are always with
11:31 me, and all that I have is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this brother, your brother, was dead and
11:43 is alive. He was lost and is found. This is the reading of god's word. Let's pray. Father, speak to your servants. Speak to your people. Speak to the children that you
11:55 have called to yourself. Help my words to be what you want them to be, And may the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight and help us to see Jesus. In his name we
12:07 pray and everybody said. Amen. Amen. God bless you. God bless you. Have a seat. Have a seat. Henry Nauwen is a name you want to be familiar with as a Christian. He was a Catholic, but he was a
12:18 contemplative Catholic. He was a powerful theologian. He was a priest. He was a scholar. He was an academic. And he was a prolific writer. He advanced in the study of
12:30 theology beyond all of his peers. He held prestigious positions in the academies of Yale, Notre Dame, and Harvard.
12:42 This guy reached the pinnacle of theological success. And at age 54, Henry Nouwen resigned his tenured position at Harvard Divinity,
12:55 moved himself to Toronto, Ontario, moved into a home for the mentally disabled and spent the last 10 years of his life ministering to those people in
13:06 absolute unknown ness. In absolute undercover. He did no 1 knew. And and and the question is what would inspire a man with so much
13:19 to his name, to his credit, so much reputation to just give it up at 54 and go and live in obscurity with those who no 1 cared about.
13:32 Well, back up in the story and he had taken a vacation well, not a vacation. He took it he had taken a year long sabbatical while he was a professor at Harvard and he went to Paris, France to
13:43 another location of ministering to the mentally disabled. And on the secretary's door he saw a poster and the poster was a rendition of Rembrandt's painting The Return
13:55 of the Prodigal. And he was so moved by it. He looked at it for several minutes and he realized that he he needed to go see the real painting, the original, painted in the
14:07 seventeenth century by Rembrandt, a man who collected massive works of art. His wife died of tuberculosis. He lost 3 of his 4 children, and only 1 survived and even died before that. That
14:18 son even died before him, and then he died in poverty but now he lives in infamy in in world fame as 1 of the greatest portrait painters ever. Rembrandt and and so Henry Nauwen through
14:30 connections with friends managed to secure travel to Saint Petersburg, Russia, then Leningrad under Soviet communism but now back to Saint Petersburg and he went to the Hermitage Museum and and through other connections
14:41 he was able to secure private time to stand before this painting the the the return of the prodigal and for 8 hours a day for an entire week
14:54 Henry Nouwen stared at that painting. 1 painting. And it brought tears to his eyes and he watched as the sun cascaded through the windows across the painting highlighting different portions
15:06 of the painting as the day progressed and he couldn't get over this painting. It struck him in the heart. And I wanna put a picture of this painting on the screen for you. This is what what he was overwhelmed
15:18 with. And and Rembrandt was known to break new ground in the artistic world because he introduced the idea of creating light in in in portraits and in oil paintings to
15:29 represent the the places that you're supposed to focus on and then leaving some portions black so as to draw your attention there and draw out a contrast. And using artistic license, he brings together the father
15:41 and the son on the left hand side of the painting. But on the right hand side of the painting, you've got the older brother. Artistic license because we know from the story the older brother's out in the field. So to
15:49 represent the older brother, he just has him standing there. And his use of light has got to be paid attention to because what do you see? Where's the brightest where's the brightest part of the painting? It's it's on
15:59 the top left forehead of the father. And it kinda cascades down the right side of his face, down across his beard, through his arms over his hands onto the back of the prodigal son,
16:11 kneeling, disheveled, his head shaved, the symbol of shame in that society, his clothing wrecked. Look at his feet down at the bottom, 1 sandal off, 1 sandal wrecked on the right side, and and all of the light there is
16:23 meant to draw you into the fact that the father receives us back as we are. It's a beautiful moment and and how Henry and Owen talks about how for hours he just reveled in the grace and the mercy of god
16:34 for lost prodigals. But but then if you shift your eyes as you're supposed to to the right side of the painting, the only other area that is truly illuminated is the face of the older brother and
16:48 his representation the same as the father, beard, head covering, red robe, very well dressed, and the and the light
16:59 cascades down across his robe to his hands, not open, but folded closed. And then down to the bottom of his robe and you see there's a staff in his hand that reaches all the way down to the
17:11 ground and you see his feet well put together with proper shoes on and what you're supposed to see is the father who looks like the older brother and the
17:23 older brother who looks like the father are responding completely different to the return of the prodigal. That though they looked similar,
17:35 they couldn't be farther apart. And then notice something else about artistry. Usually in works of art from the seventeenth century, the middle of the
17:47 painting is supposed to be the center focus. Whatever's in the middle of the painting, that's supposed to be your focus. And if you look at this painting, what do you see in the middle? You see what? Darkness.
17:59 And Henry Nouwen talks about how Rembrandt did that on purpose to draw this idea to to to illustrate this concept of of how much distance, how much space was between the father
18:11 and the older brother. And then if you're a biblical theologian at all, if you've read Luke chapter 15 at all, realize that that Jesus told the story of the return of the prodigal son not for the
18:23 prodigals who were returning alone but for the older brothers who refused to receive them. It says that the tax collectors in the first verse of Luke 15, the tax collectors and the sinners
18:35 were all drawing near to hear Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes and the religious leaders grumbled and said, this man eats with sinners and receives them. And in that light, into that context, Jesus shares the
18:47 story of the prodigal son. And Rembrandt captures all of it in his beautiful work of art. And and and Henry Nouwen talks about the fact that his life, if he was to be absolutely honest,
18:59 his life was more like that of the older brother than the younger. I mean, he was a religious scholar. He had always done what he was supposed to do.
19:12 He's a good man, a moral person, a good person, and on top of all that, a biblical theologian and successful. And he realized that all
19:24 of his success in biblical scholarship had elevated to him to a place at Harvard Divinity School that had separated him from the work of the ministry, the actual reality of the
19:36 gospel where lost people come and find hope. And on returning from Saint Petersburg, enjoying that painting for a solid week, he resigned his position and moved
19:47 to Toronto and helped the mentally disabled until the day of his death in 19 96. But he left us with a wonderful book titled The Return of the Prodigal that
19:59 unpacks all the details of that moment. And he writes in that book, not only did the younger son who left home get lost, but the 1 who stayed
20:11 home also became a lost man. On the outside, he did all the things a son is supposed to do, but interiorly, he
20:23 wandered away from his father. I don't know about you, but there is a huge difference between get to and supposed to.
20:36 I don't I don't know where you are in the spectrum of coming to god. Prodigals over here. Older dutiful sons over here. Can I tell you the gospel speaks to both sons?
20:49 To the 1 who has gone out and and wondered and done his own thing, the gospel says, you can be forgiven. And to the 1 who's been good and moral and upright and a good
21:01 citizen, a nice put together person, Can I tell you that all your goodness, the Bible says, all your righteousness and all your morality is not enough to make you acceptable before
21:13 god? You need the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse you just as much as the prodigals do. And sometimes if I'm honest as a preacher, it is so much
21:24 easier to talk to the prodigals and the wayward children than the religiously put together moral people because the religiously put together moral people think that it is what they do that makes them right
21:36 before god and I gotta tell you today, it has nothing to do with that. For by grace, you have been saved through faith and it is not your own doing.
21:49 And I wanna ask you, if you become an older brother, are you supposed to saint? Are you supposed to saint? I mean, you're here on Easter Sunday, the supposed to Sunday, and let me just offend you a little bit longer.
21:59 Write this down if if you're taking notes and if you're not taking notes, write this down. You become an older brother when you serve but don't celebrate. When
22:11 you serve but don't celebrate. What I mean by that is you do the right thing. You serve. In Jesus' story, where do we meet the where do we first encounter the older brother? Where is he located?
22:23 In the field. Verse 25. Now his older son was where? In the field. The field symbolizes what? Work. He's probably getting up every
22:35 morning. Gotta go out to that field. Why? Supposed to. Dad wants me to. Gotta go fix that plow for the fifteenth time. Gotta do it. Why? Supposed to.
22:47 It's what I do. It's what I do. The old man doesn't take any notice but that's what I do. Out in the field and then he drew near. Notice he never goes in the house. He draws near
22:59 to the house and this is very intriguing. He heard music and dancing. Has anyone in all of our locations ever heard music and dancing? Just raise your hand real quick. Just raise your hand. Okay, yeah, yeah. We've all
23:11 heard it. Look what he does though. And he called 1 of the servants and asked what these things meant. How dry and stuffy you have to be to
23:22 not recognize what music and dancing mean. It means something good just happened. But he's so disconnected from joy. He's so disconnected from
23:34 celebration. He has no idea. Do you know why? Because he's too busy trying to build a life for himself. He's so busy. He's raising kids to be good citizens.
23:46 He's you know, being a good husband. He's doing good things for the community. He's a good person. He's your average American sitting on the PTA committee.
23:59 Putting his garbage out on the right day of the week. And he's so locked up in his service to the father. He has no connection with
24:10 the heart of the father. I don't even know what music and dancing means. That's because you're too busy trying your hardest to be a good person. That makes you a
24:22 miserable Christian, I tell you. It makes you a miserable religious elitist. But the bible says very clearly that you don't get saved by your work. Ephesians 2 8, I just said it. Grace, you've been saved through
24:34 faith, not your own doing. The gift of God, not a result of what? Works. You cannot be good enough to get to heaven. I'm good enough. How do you know? What is good enough? And what you
24:46 think is good is different from what foreigners think is good. So why don't you think for a second? What's the level of goodness that you need to attain? Jesus told us in Matthew chapter 5. He said, the level is this,
24:58 perfect. You need to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Does anybody got that down? None of us including yours truly.
25:10 We can't be perfect. Although, if if we were able to be good enough, Jesus never would have died. He died because we're not good enough. He died to get you forgiven of all your sins and to bring
25:22 you and make you good enough not through your works but through his grace and when you know that, there's joy to be had. There's gladness to be had to know that
25:33 because the sinless savior died, my life is now resurrected and sanctified and brought to new life and Jesus is all that I need to get through the courts of heaven and pass
25:45 the pearly gaze and enter into eternal joy and celebrate with my father for all eternity. That's it. But so many Christians and so many churches,
25:57 entire denominations have no joy. Have no joy. You think I'm amped up for Easter? I'm like this every week.
26:11 Because it's always Easter Sunday in my mind. And I think about some churches, they're so dead. You wonder if they've ever met Jesus. He liked a good party. He
26:23 went to the wedding of Canaan not to perform a miracle but to just have fun. I'm pro fun. Give me a politician who wants to run on the platform, make
26:35 America fun again. I'll vote for that guy. Where where is the fun? The fun's been gone for 2 years. We need to bring the fun back. We need to bring the happiness back. We need to bring the joy
26:46 back. You've seen what happens when the fun's gone. We attack each other. We hate each other. We point at each other. We need to bring the fun back. When we were building out this
26:58 location here in North Attleboro, remember we had a grumpy old curmudgeon of a contractor. His name was Dave and he was a funny guy. And we would go in and we would say, hey Dave, how's it going? And he would go
27:09 miserable. Okay, Dave. Well, keep going. Curmudgeon. And we were showing him the cafe and what it was gonna look like at the end. He's
27:21 like, man, I'll tell you, you Protestants, you have it over us Catholics every day. I said why he goes at my church as soon as the pastors and the final benediction that's to the
27:33 door. I'm like yeah, we like to have a party like to celebrate with you at all locations. Know how hang out have some coffee, get to know some people, joke around like that's what the church is supposed to
27:44 do. So let's have fun. So yesterday, we had the egg drop here in North Adderbergh. We've had egg hunts at all of our locations and some curmudgeons love to say, hey sir, it's not about eggs and bunnies. It's
27:56 about Jesus. Well, yes it is but the eggs and the bunnies make it fun. I'm pro fun. It is not sinful to crack an egg and give a
28:08 prize. Amen. So I'm on the way out to the big egg drop, and I'm on the I'm on the way out in the office area early in the morning yesterday, and I I see sitting in a box is the Easter bunny
28:20 costume. And I think, why not? Who do I have to who do I have to ask? Oh, that's right. Nobody. I'm the lead pastor.
28:32 So I dropped down to my skivvies and I put the thing on real quickly. I first went into the bathroom, dropped down to my skivvies, put the thing on. And I thought to myself, this is gonna be fun.
28:44 I'm gonna go out there with the 1500 kids waiting for the egg drop I'm gonna just mingle, pat some kids on the head, hug some people, dance around as the Easter bunny. I was
28:56 mistaken. I got 5 feet out the door, and a rushing stampede of 6 year olds and soccer moms came flying toward me.
29:08 I immediately thought I've made a horrible mistake. It was like Kim Kardashian showing up at a porn convention.
29:24 He's like Justin Bieber showing up at junior prom. Okay, that's better. Lord forgive him for he knows not what he does. Anyway, suddenly a line forms, and then I'm like, oh my goodness. This is gonna be horrible. Like,
29:36 a little kid, little Rugrats are touching me, prodding me, poking me. Something I also remembered, I don't even like children. This is what it feels like to be a ride at Disney. This is awful.
29:48 And we have a video of it here on the screen, and I you can see I'm hugging and hanging out. But this is the line. Look at the line. Look at the line. It was like that for an hour.
30:01 Then I was up in a helicopter and I was dumping eggs out and sweating from the top of my head to top of my feet. Well, you know,
30:16 it's good to have fun. That wasn't fun, but you know, was alright. Anyway, man, I was suddenly, all these these thoughts started to flood as I was thinking about this weekend's
30:27 message, I and I realized that there was 2 kind of kids that day coming up to the Easter body. The the kids who couldn't wait to come and hug me and touch me and take a picture with me and then the
30:39 kids whose parents had to push them to to me. They were like, no. No. No. And man, some of you moms, you are so persistent. Why don't you discipline the same way you try to get them to the Easter bunny?
30:51 For heaven's sake. I'll be like, alright, yo, kid doesn't want anything to do with this. Just shoo him away. That's fine. 1 kid tried to pick up my shoe and see if it was
31:03 me underneath. I swatted him away like an empty egg. Anyway, there's like 2 kinds of kids. The kids who wanted to be there and the kids who were forced to be there. The kids who got to be there and the kids who were
31:14 supposed to be there. And then I thought this is what God feels like. This is what God feels like. And do you know which kids had to
31:26 be pushed? The older kids. What is it about life that the older we get, the less we celebrate?
31:38 When was the last time you really just had a good celebration day? Like that had nothing to do with doing work or trying to be a good person or
31:49 putting your best image of yourself on Instagram and then 2 hours later checking how many likes you got?
32:01 When was the last time you did something fun not for anyone else to sit but just because you knew that you were a child of the most high God. He
32:13 loves you. He made the sun to rise. He's gonna bring you home to be with Him. And you know what this world is made for? This world is made for His glory, not yours. So enjoy it to the glory of God.
32:27 Like that and then to come to church and not to be the kid who has to be. Fathers are you 1 of those fathers? Are you 1 of those fathers that the
32:39 wife has to hold your hand to get you to church? Why don't you just kiss your Christian kids goodbye? Why don't you just kiss their chances of faith goodbye? Why don't you be the man of the house and wake
32:50 up early and get your kids out of bed and say, yes, for me and my house, we're gonna serve the lord. I don't like
33:02 this sermon so if I don't like this sermon, you need it. Gotta get back to what faith is all about. It's about the joy of the Lord. The Psalmist says in Psalm 100, make a
33:14 joyful noise to the Lord so that all the earth Now I got a question for you. Are you part of all the earth? Yes. Yes. So this verse applies to you.
33:27 Serve the lord with gladness. Come into his presence with what? Singing. Singing. Like, this is this is commanded. Notice that the verse doesn't say, if you feel like it. Make a joyful noise
33:39 of the lord. It's commanded. And I think on Easter Sunday, of all Sundays, I have permission to to ask you, to to command you this verse upon you. Can can we, at all locations, make a joyful noise
33:51 to the Lord on the count of 3? Good on Easter. Alright. Let's let's see if we got it in. Was ready. 1, 2, 3. Yes.
34:09 Hallelujah. The Psalm has says in Psalm 1 22, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the lord. Yes. Yes. Notice that it doesn't say, was glad
34:21 when they said to me, let us go watch the patriots. Or the Bucks. No. I was glad when I said when I said, let's go to church. Yes. If you've been miserable at church, let
34:33 me just tell you, you've been at the wrong church. You know the scripture the the Bible book that has the most terms of celebration in it. You'll never believe it. What Bible book talks about celebrating
34:45 the most? You'll never guess. Leviticus. Yet, that's the book you skip when you try to read through the Bible in a year. Because
34:57 there's there's a command in the scriptures of Leviticus to say, come to the Lord's house 3 times a year and celebrate for 7 straight days. 3 times a year, the Jews from all over were supposed
35:09 to make a pilgrimage back to Jerusalem. And on the first day of the week, would have a solemn celebration, a day of rest. Imagine if we just said to the whole nation, hey, everybody, just rest. Right?
35:20 You know what I'm saying? Let's shut the WiFi off for 24 hours. Some of would like, I would never rest if that was the case. But this is what Israel is supposed to do. And it says, When you gather in the produce of your
35:32 land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord 7 days. Man, we go to we go to parties for 4 hours, we're done. The the Jews were like, 7 days, man. It's biblical.
35:46 You're an older brother if you serve, but you don't celebrate, if you do the good things, but you don't have any joy in it. The joy of the Lord, the Bible says, is our strength. Back to the text in Luke 15
35:57 27, it says, And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed a fattened calf.' Verse 28, But he was what? Angry. And he refused to go in.
36:10 Oh, I just see this picture of a man just getting so stuffy and mad. I don't wanna go in. Point number 2, if you're taking notes, you become an older brother when you obey out of obligation.
36:22 Supposed to church. Supposed to do. Supposed to be. This is what the brother was about. This is what the older brother was about. The true prodigal of this story. Now listen to these words
36:34 in verse 29. And all the parents in the house, could you just imagine if your child was saying this to you? Look, these many years I have served
36:46 you. Now the word serve is softened there in the ESV. The real word in Greek is doulos. It means to be a slave. So literally he says, look, father, these many
36:58 years I have slaved for you. Imagine, parents, your child saying that to you. And I never disobeyed
37:09 your command. Liar. Anyone who's had kids knows that's not possible. And you never gave me even a young
37:21 goat that I might celebrate with my friends. Wow. Here here's what it means to obey god out of obligation because you think that if you're a good person that
37:33 god automatically is required to give you good things. Some of you think, well, went to church on Easter Sunday, I'm due for a good
37:45 week. No, you know what, that's just sanctified selfishness, that's what that is. If you do, if you serve God, if you do the good
37:57 things that God wants you to do so that God will give you the things that you wanna have, the question is, who are you really serving?
38:11 It's you. That's what this boy's that's what the pharisees and the religious leaders' problem was. That's why they had such a hard time with Jesus hanging out with sinners. How dare he give them good
38:23 things? You're like, oh, I'm so glad I'm not an older brother. Okay. Let me do a couple tests from his words. Notice the frustration in his life. Look these many years I've slayed for
38:35 you. Frustrated. You ever been frustrated with God? Frustrated, where are you? Don't you see where I'm going? Frustration is the root
38:47 of the heart of an older brother who obeys out of obligation and not out of the joy that God has rescued you from sin and hell and death. Secondly, the pride of his heart, I never
38:58 disobeyed. I am a good person. I'm a good son. Don't you notice? Pride. Don't you understand that the original sin was not Eve eating the fruit but
39:09 Satan trying to take God's place in heaven. I will ascend. Isaiah 14. I will arise. I will make myself like the most high. I deserve. I am a good angel and
39:21 god cast him out of heaven like lightning. Why? Because of pride. I deserve. I deserve. I deserve. That is an older brother attitude and then you never gave me a young god that I might
39:32 celebrate with my friends. That's resentment. Resentment. Some of you are there with god. He lets all the people I love die. He takes all the good things away from me. He never lets me have anything that I really, reallyShow more
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