Religion, Rebellion, and Why Neither Work | Crossroads Church

My name is Miko, and I serve as the prison director with Crossroads Church. If you're new to Crossroads, we're a church all about helping people connect with God and discover the life Jesus invites us all into, no matter where we've been or what our circumstances look like today. We love to say that we're a real church for real people. We're not afraid to dive in deep. Today, I lead past the Kyle Rancin AKA K-DOT, AKA Short King. He's talking to us about raw love. Imagine Jesus pulling down on you like, "Hey, let me holler at you. Would you be nervous? Would you be anxious? How would you feel? What would you think?" It's exactly why we're digging into the truth about how God sees us and how we can change the way we live. Check it out. Well, hey everybody, good to be with you. Today is a great weekend. Number one, because it's the start of the NFL season. Come on, we're back. And I just want to say from the beginning, I think we should pray more for our quarterbacks this year. You know, keep them free from harm, Joe Burrow and Cincinnati, our friends over at Indianapolis, I see you, Daniel Jones coming back, Cleveland, four quarterbacks on your roster. I'm not sure prayer is going to help, to be honest, but we should try. We should try. And then our friends in Columbus, I don't know what happened yesterday. I went to bed and I was like, "This is in hand." And I woke up and someone seen the highlights. No idea. I just want you to know, Psalm 34 says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted." So God is with you this morning. I want you to know that. Lexington, you're like, "Why are we talking about football? It's like in basketball season yet. I hear you. I hear you." Awesome, because we're starting football. We're also starting a brand new series today at Crossroads called Raw. Some things in life are better raw, sushi, medium rare steak, and some things are not chicken. I've never seen raw chicken on a menu for a reason. But at Crossroads, we believe that church belongs in a list of things that are better raw. It's not always the case when you go to a church. Sometimes it feels like you've got to come in your Sunday best, you've got to put on your happy smile, pretend like everything's okay, pretend like you understand it, pretend like you believe it, pretend like you're good. That's not what we do here at all. You heard that announcement before about revival. We as a church, we're pushing to see revival. We're pushing to see awakening in our country. And part of that is that revival event you heard about, save the date for that. But part of it is also expanding into new cities, taking the message of Jesus in a language people can understand in some more places. We had to pop up in Cleveland last night, 100 people

showed up. It was great. And when we do these events, we hear the same thing from people when we ask this question. Why would you want Crossroads to be your church? And they say, because it feels like it's a place where I can be the real me, the real raw unfiltered me, and then that real me can be put into action as part of the team. It's a value we hold very, very dearly around here. So much so, you'll even see it reflected in the buildings. If you go to a Crossroads on site, maybe you're in one right now, you'll see exposed duct work to communicate this value. You'll see floors that are nasty. We put a little stain on top of them, but they're pretty much raw. If you're at Dayton right now, maybe you walked in for the first time and you're like, why does this atrium floor look so weird? It's because it was a seer. And the floor is from seers. That's why. No more appliances when we kept the floor. We're trying to hide who we are. That's the value we try to communicate. And in this series, we're taking a raw look at some of the most important parts of life. Love, sex, purpose, identity in this series. Addiction. And today, we're going to start with love and ask this question. Honestly, again, not looking for the religious right answer, not looking for what would you say if your grandma was here, because she taught you on Sunday school or whatever. But what do you really, truly, actually believe and feel? The question we're tackling today is, how do I gain God's approval and love? And if I were to gain it, how do I keep it? The God knew that would be a question that was on all of our hearts since we talked about it all over the Bible. But today, we're going to zoom into one chapter, Luke 15, and look at three parables that Jesus tells in sequence. Now, parables are literally made up stories, and that might seem kind of weird. Like, how are we going to get truth from made up stories? Well, the answer is that Jesus' words are not like our words. The same words that spoke these stories, the same mouth that spoke them is the same mouth that spoke creation into existence. So, I just want to invite you to look at these stories maybe differently than you ever have before. These are words that create reality, and I'm telling you today, they can create a different reality inside of your life. Jesus himself described his words this way. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them in the practice as like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house,

yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. Maybe in your life right now, you feel tossed around, you feel kind of turned upside down, or maybe when it comes to this question of, "How do I know that God really loves me? "How can I earn, how can I gain his approval? "How can I keep it?" Maybe it feels like some days you have it, and what you're looking for is stability. Today, my hope and my prayer for you is that you find it. Let's pray together before we go any further. God, I'm asking that today we would hear your word, that you would anchor all of us, whether we believed zero or whether we believed, as most as we ever have before in life, that you would still drill us down deeper to the rock, to the truth, anchor us to your words, help us understand how we can have your love. Amen. To the parable we're looking at, it's one of the most famous parables, and most important ones in the entire Bible, it's called the parable of the prodigal son, what he's usually known by, but that title actually does not show up in the Bible, and it's fairly misleading, because it's not actually a story about one prodigal son, it's actually a story about one father in two lost sons. This one story contains this incredible, powerful, profound truth.

And that is that every single human idea, about how to gain God's love and approval, how to gain it and keep it, every single human idea about that is 100% wrong. Every religion, every guru, every mystic, every philosopher throughout human history has always been wrong. Jesus explodes all of it in this parable. You know when Christianity first arose, the Romans referred to Christians as atheist. And in part because of the truth that Jesus shows through this parable, they look at what he says about how to gain God's love and approval, and they're like, that's not religion. It's like an unreligions, so much so that the people who follow this unreligions, we're gonna call them atheists. Jesus explodes all of it in this story. That basic idea about how to connect to God, how to gain his approval and how his love is. You do the right things, and if you do the right things, you gain his approval and love, and if you ever do the wrong things, you have to regain it. That's the basic concept. Now, Jesus doesn't jump into the story about the sons though, and Luke 15, he actually starts with two opening parables, and he starts to tell them to an audience with two groups in it. Here's the beginning in Luke 15, verse one. It says, "Now, the tax collectors and sinners

"were all drawing near to him, "and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, "saying, this man received sinners and eats with them." So you have an audience that's literally divided. You have the sinners on one side, and then you have the religious people, the self-righteous people, the Pharisees on the other. And one of the things I love about crossroads is, we kind of intermingle, people from all over, different backgrounds, we kind of all mingle together. That's awesome, it looks like the kingdom of God. That's not how this scene would have looked. This scene would have looked like one group on one side of the street, and another group on the other, because the religious people wanted nothing to do with the bad people. So they've been aligned down the sand. But Jesus doesn't start by talking to them distinctly. Instead, he starts with the thing that they share in common, and that is that they and all of us are lost. He starts with these two parables, who's a story about a man who has 100 sheep. And one of them wanders off and gets lost. But rather than stay with the 99 sheep, the man leaves them and he wanders off to go find to hunt down the lost sheep. He searches high and low until he finds the sheep. And then he follows it up with a story about a woman with 10 coins. She loses one of them.

Rather than be satisfied with the nine that she still has, she turns her house upside down, she flips over a furniture, she hunts, and she digs until she finds her lost coin. And in both cases, the man with the sheep and the woman with the coin, when they find the lost thing that's precious to them, they celebrate. Jesus starts with this story and he says this is you, you are lost. And then he goes into the parable that we call the prodigal son. Verse 11, he said there was a man who had two sons. It's two sons, they represent the two types of lost. Two types of lost, you call them rebellion in religion. There's a famous theologian, he passed away a few years ago. Probably the best teacher, best theologian of the last hundred years. His name was Dr. Timothy Keller. And he described these two sons as moral conformity The self-discovery route is the rebellious route. It's the one that says, "I'm going to take everything I've ever heard, whatever tradition I grew up in, and I'm going to rebel against that. I'm going to reject it, and I'll go discover for myself how to have the good life, what it looks like to gain favor." And then there's the religious route. The religious route, in this case, is the Pharisees in the crowd. It's the class that says, "I'm going to do everything right. I'm going to hit every mark. I'm going to earn it. I'm going to deserve it. I'm going to have the perfect resume. And then I'll get God's love and get God's approval." Two ways to end up lost in the secret that I want you to hear from the very beginning is that the lostness is the same in both cases,

the same. I think it can be easy to approach this parable and ask the question, "Well, what am I? I'm in the self-righteous kind of camp, the religious camp, or am I in the rebellion camp? Which one am I?" And I actually don't think that's the point of this parable. I think the point of the parable is to say that you and I are usually both. It's this weird thing. I have both voices going on inside of my heart. In the same day, I can make mistakes. I can feel like a rebel. I can feel like an outsider in a sinner. In the same exact day, even moments later, I can have a self-righteous moment. I'm right and you're wrong. I might be bad, but at least I'm not as bad as you. Both voices are inside of each of us. When Jesus starts with the rebel inside of us, kind of act one, so to speak, rebellion, the younger son. He says this, verse 12, "The younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the share of property that's coming to me." And he divided his property between them. Now, it seems fairly cut and dried here. You know, not a good thing to do. When he asks for property, he's saying, "I wish you were dead. Maybe you've heard that before. 100% that's in there." But it looks like he asks for stuff, property, and then he gets stuff. But critically, if you go to the original language, the Greek that this was first recorded in, you'll find a noteworthy difference. And that is this. The first time property is used, give me the share of property. The word is ocea, the Greek word. And it does mean stuff. It means possessions, money, whatever. But the second time, when it says the father gave him his property, it's actually the Greek word bios, where we get the word biology, and it means life. So don't miss this in the story. The son asks for stuff, and the father gives him not stuff, but his very own life. Critical and important. Amazing gift to be given life. Now, what does the son do with this life? What does he do with the gift that his father gave him? He completely utterly wastes it. Verse 13. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property,

squandered his life in reckless living. He kind of wastes everything, blows everything. By the way, this is enough money. You should have lasted him for a lifetime. This is decades worth of money, and he blows it. Not when he's sure how long it takes. Best guesses are it's two to three years before he runs completely dry. He ends up in a pig pen, wishing he could have their food. And here's the raw moment for me with this story. Raw moment number one. If I'm honest, I read this story, and I look at what the guy did, and I'm like, "Man, that's really bad." You know? And to be clear, I've had some moments where I've had reckless living in my life. I've had some prodigal type moments. I went to college, I was in a fraternity. First time ever drank bourbon, I poured an entire pint glass of it and drank the whole thing. That's a bad idea, in case you didn't know. Woke up at 3 p.m. the next day on my buddy's floor with a tongue that tasted like sandpaper. Bad. But do you know what I've never done? I've never looked at my dad and said, "I wish you were dead." I've never taken an inheritance that should last a lifetime and blown it in a couple of years. I've never done that. And so I can look at this story and I can go, "You know, that's really bad, and I'm not as bad as that guy. I haven't done what he did. I'm not the prodigal." I think for most of us in churches, that's probably how we feel. And I want to recognize there are some of us in the audience who we hear this story and we're like, "That's exactly what I've done. Exactly what I've done. It feels that way." But for many of us, it doesn't. So we have to ask this question, what was the prodigal son's primary sin? Was it the wild party lifestyle? Was it drinking and carousing? Is that the primary problem in here? No. The prodigal son's primary sin is squandering,

wasting the life the father gave him. It's taking the life he had, the life he couldn't earn, the life he didn't even ask for but was That's the prodigal sin. One of the most impactful sermons I ever heard in my life was when I was 19 years old. And it was a sermon by a guy named John Piper. And when I was 19, I wasn't trying to waste my life to be clear. Wasn't trying to do that. I didn't want to wake up one day and go, you know, I'm just going to completely kind of waste the life God gave me. I had a dream at that point in my life. That my dream was to go to a good college, got into one, get good grades, get a good job, buy a good house, need a good woman, have good kids, take nice vacations, have a good retirement, and die in like a not so painful kind of way. That was my basic dream in life, right? And then someone shared this sermon with me and it messed me up. It messed me up in a way that has changed the course of my life. And I'm going to share it with you. Raw, it is ugly old footage. It's 20 plus years old and the guy giving it looks like Larry David, okay? He's got pleated khakis up to his waist. He does not look raw, but the way that he communicates

is completely, completely raw. He flipped my understanding of what it means to waste a life. Check this out. Anybody in this crowd can make a worldwide difference 'cause it isn't you. It's what you're gripped with. But one of the really sad things about this moment right now is that there are hundreds of you in this crowd who do not want your life to make a difference. All you want is to be liked. Maybe finish school, get a good job, find a husband or a wife, a nice house, a nice car, good vacations, grow old, healthy, have a fun retirement, die easy, no hell, and that's all you want. You don't give a rip whether your life counts on this earth for eternity. That's a tragedy in the making. That is a tragedy in the making. About three weeks ago, we got news at our church that Ruby Aliasan and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon. And I asked my people, is this a tragedy to women? In their 80s, almost, a whole life devoted to one idea, Jesus Christ magnified among the poor and the sick in the hardest places. And 20 years after most of their American counterparts had begun to throw their lives away on trivialities in Florida and New Mexico, is this a tragedy I asked? It is not a tragedy.

I'll read you what a tragedy is. Title of the article, start now, retire early. Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago and he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, place off ball and collect shells. (audience laughing) That's a tragedy. That's a tragedy and there are people in this country that are spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it. With all my heart, I plead with you, don't buy that dream. (audience cheering) The American Dream, a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells. (audience laughing) with what you did. Here it is, Lord, my shell collection. Look, Lord, my shell collection, and I've got a good swing. You look at my boat, God, look at my boat, God, well, not for Ruby and not for Laura. Don't waste your life, don't waste it. I did exactly what you guys did when I saw that. I laughed because I'm like, yeah, I'm ridiculous. At the end of your life, look, Lord, at my shell collection. How crazy is that? But I had a realization, I might not have ended up collecting shells with the life God gave

me. But whatever answer I was going to give him with what I did do, God, look at my bank account, look at my large house, look at my nice cars, look at my vacation photos. Look at my trinkets I collected, God. It was going to be the same thing. See, I realized that I was the prodigal. It's the same thing. Whether you waste your life fast or whether you waste your life slow, doesn't really matter. What matters is, are you wasting your life? Are you squandering the life that God gave you? Please hear me clearly. For me, when I watched that, it messed me up and put me on the path to where I am now. If I had never seen that sermon, I don't know that I'd be a pastor right now. I really don't. But I'm not telling you that what you're supposed to do with your life is exactly what I did with mine, because the life God gave you is not the life he gave me, it's different. The calling that God gave you is not the calling that he gave me. We're not all supposed to become pastors, that's not the point of what I'm saying, but we are supposed to do all of us is to use the life that God gave us to invest it in the eternal reality of his kingdom, coming more and more and more on this earth. That's why your community pastors just spent time begging you to open your phone and tap a sticker in front of you. Like, would you please just volunteer and sign up and would you please get in the game? We all have a jersey and the point is not to keep it clean, the point is to get it dirty by serving in the kingdom and I'll be clear, it might not be a crossroads. That's okay. You don't want to volunteer a crossroads? Fine. Don't worry about it. Maybe not, not for you.

But where are you making a difference? Where are you using the life that God gave you, the energy and the gifts that he invested in you for him and his kingdom? Don't waste your life. That's the prodigal sin, a life given by the father, gifts given by the father in completely utterly wasted, do not waste your life. Now, what's amazing in this story is that the prodigal son wastes his life, the entire thing. He actually comes to you in the pig bed and he's like, "Oh, no, I've wasted it, I've squandered everything." And so he formulates this plan about how to come back to the father and the plan follows the ideals of every human idea ever about how to gain God's love and approval. It's, "I will earn it." He goes, "You know, I'm going to approach him and I'm going to say, make me one of your hired hands." Now, a hired hand, there's no matter about this story, hired hand is not a slave. A hired hand was somebody, a parentist and a really valuable skill who earned a good income. In fact, they had their own property. And so what the son is doing with his hired hand plan is he's saying, "I'm going to be able to pay my dad back. I'll show up and I'll talk to him about how much I might earn per year as a hired hand. I'll make a payment plan and maybe we'll put some interest in there and I'll give him my pay you back, earn my way back into your love and approval plan." That's not what the father does to him. You know, I used to imagine that the father in this story was just sort of like sitting and waiting for his son to come home, you know? Like every day he was at the farmhouse and he would wake up in the morning, he would make his coffee, he would go out to the porch, he'd sit in the front porch and he'd just kind of sip his coffee and look over the horizon.

Wonder if my son's coming home today. Don't see him. Oh well. Put the coffee down. Go about his day. But you know, the father didn't do that. This is what's incredible. How does the father respond to a wasted life, to a kid who's so rebellious they're squandering everything? The father goes after them. Remember our first two parables? The guy with the sheep and the woman with the coin? Those actually weren't about the last object. Very little is said about the sheep. We don't know anything about it. Very little's about the coin. The point of those stories was to tell us about the person who lost something precious to them and root us and establish us in what God is like. He hunts them down. He goes after you. Do you know you have a God your entire life has come after you? That father wasn't sitting on the porch waiting and sipping his coffee. He was sitting out search teams. He was buying billboards. He was mailing letters to cities saying, "Hey, if you see my son, would you read in this note for me? "I just wanted to know, it's his son. "I love you.

"I want you back. We're still here for you. "I believe in you. I accept you. "I have good plans for you. "In fact, I can't wait to celebrate you "when you finally come home. "If you see my son, would you give him this letter?" That's the father. (congregation applauding) And whether you realize that your entire life, you have a father who even if you've squandered your life, he goes, "I don't care. "I'm coming after him, sending letters after him. "I want you to hear what I have for you." Has anybody in here seen "The Odyssey"? Anybody seen "The Odyssey"? I'm gonna spoil it for you. And before you complain, the book came out 3000 years ago. (congregation laughing) You had time. (congregation laughing) In the movie version, Christopher Nolan focuses on this story. It tells an incredible story about a father who will stop that nothing to be reunited with his lost son. It's the reason the movie is so powerful. Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, it's artistic. Yes, you should see it for those reasons. But the reason that it resonates so deeply

and since setting records is because it is this story. The real story of a God who loves us so much will stop at nothing to be reunited with us. So when the father does finally see his son, we don't know if it's close to home, we don't know if it's far away from him. When he finally sees his son, he runs to him. Here's the story, verse 20. He arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion and ran and embraced and kissed him. He ran. I don't know if you know this about us dads. We don't run. (congregation laughing) Don't do that. There was a time in my life I ran. My kids are all running right now. They're all doing cross country. This was a couple of Saturdays ago. They had a cross country meet and they run their race and I'm cheering them on. I don't know what happened to me, but something snapped in my mind. 'Cause I went to Chipotle for lunch. Extra rice, sour cream. And then as soon as I get home, I had this thought. I was like, "You know what I'm gonna do? "I'm gonna run.

"I haven't run in years." I'm like three miles. They may have looked easy. How hard can it be? Turns out very hard, I almost died. Very hard. (congregation laughing) Don't recommend it. Dads don't run. In Middle Eastern culture, Middle Eastern dads did not run. It was actually a sign of shame. You didn't run to people. The more prestigious you were, the more powerful, the more influential, you didn't run to people. They ran to you. And so when the father does this, he's violating everything that's known about how dads are supposed to act. And here's the wild part. When the father runs up to him, huffing and puffing for sure, hands on knees. Here's what he says. 21, the son said to him, "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, "Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. "Bring a ring and put it on his hands, shoes on his feet, "and bring the fat and calf and kill it. "Let us eat and celebrate.

"For this, my son, my son was dead and is alive again. "He was lost and is found and they began to celebrate." Wild what he does. Here's the best robe, my robe. Put a ring on his finger, my ring. Kill the fat and calf, the one I've been saving and hoping and waiting and wishing that he's gonna show up. It's amazing what he does. But what's even more amazing is what he doesn't do. 'Cause what he doesn't do is say, "Hey son, I've got a couple of questions. "There are some rumors about you. "There are some accusations out there, "but what you did in this wild party life, "so I've just got a couple questions for you. "Does not do that at all." Doesn't even let him get his plan out about the hired hand thing. Completely cuts him off. All the son says is, "Father, I've sinned." And he's like, "That's enough for me." No apology, no excuses, no questions. Just now you're my son, welcome home son. Why would he do that? Because when the father views his son, when your father views you, he's not looking at your past. He's not reciting the rolodex of your sense. He says this in Psalm 103, "As far as the east is from the west,

"so far does he remove our transgression from us. "As a father shows compassion." We just read those words in this story. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, compassion. to actually believe this? A couple of years ago, I was on a trip, a kind of a spiritual growth-centered trip with some people from Crossroads. We were in Germany studying the life of Martin Luther, amazing people, deep spiritual people, people who followed Jesus for a long time, people who know a lot of Bible verses, but this strange theme emerged as the trip went on, and it was this, there were a lot of people who had been divorced in their past on this trip, and I would get in these conversations with people and it'd become really clear, they all still held this view of God looked at them as less than. If they were to show up at God's house, God might not kick them out the door, but God wasn't going to welcome them in, give them a hug, call them son, call them daughter, say he was proud of them and give them a seat at the table, that was never going to happen to them. It's like God was still holding on to the past, and so in conversation after conversation, I just had to go like, have you read the Bible? Do you know what the gospel says? As far as the east is from the west? Do you know how far apart that is? Infinitely far apart. See, when you come to the Father, and they ask this question, "How do I gain God's love and approval? How do I keep it?" The answer is you don't, you don't, the lost thing can't find itself. The one who's falling out of favor can't regain favor.

It's that the incredible, crazy, seeing nowhere else gospel that's an unreligion is the truth that the Father just loves you and gives it to you. Amazing, amazing. If you've been in a spot in your life where you're like, "Man, I've got to earn my way back. I've got to overcome my past, I've got to follow through on my mistakes." No, you don't. No, you don't. That is not it. That's religion. If you've been wearing a low opinion of yourself as a religious merit badge, I would suggest you get a new religion because that's not Jesus. It's not what he has for you. Now there is this voice in us though that we've got to talk about. There's the voice of the rebel that speaks to us that wants to keep us in shame and keep us stuck in our past, but then there's the religious voice that tells us that we have to stay there, this religious voice, and that is the voice of the older son. It's more like a button at the end of the story, it's not as much about the older son, but we need to look at it, verse 25. Now as older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and he asked what these things meant, and he said to him, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fat and calf because he's received him back safe and sound." But he, the older son, was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, "Look, husbands, if you start a conversation with your wife, with the word look, does it go well for you, doesn't it for me? If I did that, I would be looking for a new place to sleep, that would happen for me." But the older son, he's so full of self-righteousness, I am right, I have done what's right, I have earned, and I deserve your affection, I deserve your approval, I deserve the stuff that you

should give me, I am owed it. He's so sure of this, that he starts with, "Look," and then he says, "These many years I've served you, I've never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, a cheeseburger, now I ask you for a fat and calf, never bought me Taco Bell, that I might celebrate with my friends, but when the son of years came who's devoured your property with prostitutes, you kill the fat and calf for him." And here's the moment, the two kinds of lost are actually the same. Both think they have to earn God's love. Both think they need to deserve. Both think there's something called, "I can be owed, I can earn it." Both think there's a thing called, "Enough, I can do enough." And the father says, "No." What's amazing is the father responds to them both the same way. He runs to the younger son, and he goes to the older one too. Verse 28, "He was angry and refused to go in, his father came out." Again, the father goes to the lost older son, and he calls him son. Verse 31, he says, "Son, you are always with me. All that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this your brother was dead in his life. He was lost in his found." And that's where the story ends. Do you know what we don't get in the stories? We don't know how the older son responds. There's nothing in the parable the younger son goes, oh my gosh, amazing. Wow, we don't get that moment. There's not a moment where the older son either rejects it. Dad, that's ridiculous. I just can't stand for it and stays outside. Or where he goes, you're right, you're right dad.

I just wanna receive your, I'll come back inside. I'll celebrate. We don't get that moment. Why? Because the point of the parable is how will you respond? Not somebody else, not theory, not head knowledge, raw unfiltered, how will you respond to this kind of love? How will you? Tell you you have a father. He's got a raw unfiltered view of you. He knows it all, he's seen it all. He's senior rebellion, he's senior religion and his response to you is the same as in this story. He runs to you. And he just wants to tell you he loves you. He just wants to tell you that you are enough. In my life, this was a transformative time for me. Back when I saw that video and started thinking these thoughts and going, man, I don't wanna waste my life. And God, I think I've been working to gain your approval. I thought I had it and now I feel kind of not sideways. And so I spent two years searching through scripture, trying to find every place I could with God, what do you say about your love and how I can earn it, how I can gain it, how I can keep it, what do you actually say? I spent two years, run it all down. By the way, if you tap the sticker in front of you, it's the thing you'll get.

When you click on Kyle's notes and verses, it's many pages of scripture. I don't have time to go through all of them right now, but as we end our experience, I just want you to hear the words of your father, enough from me. You've heard my interpretation. You've heard my thoughts. But I want you to hear the words of your father. Do you know before you were born, he started hunting you down. He was buying billboards. He sent out search teams, his church, to hunt you down and find you. He sent letters, his word, across the universe in hopes that one day you would hear it in believing. Maybe you're in a spot in your life where you're like, I've already heard it, I heard a long time ago, and I'm good. Friend, if you ever think you're past the point you need to hear how God loves you, warning sign. Flashing red light in your life. None of us are too far gone. None of us know this enough. No, all of us approach God the same way as children. The father who loves us. These are the words of your father. I'm gonna give them to you. We'll have some song between, give you time to sit and to soak on the words.

If there's something that jumps out to you, I encourage you, take a picture of it on the screen. Or write down where it is in the Bible. Here's God's words. Jeremiah 31, 3. I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. John 15, 15. Jesus says, no longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I've heard from my father, I have made known to you. ♪ I've got a friend ♪ ♪ Closer than a brother ♪ ♪ And there is no judgment ♪ ♪ Oh how he loves me ♪ ♪ I've got a friend ♪ ♪ And he is my strength ♪ ♪ And he is my portion ♪ ♪ He's with me in the valley ♪ ♪ With me in the fire ♪ ♪ With me in the storm ♪ ♪ To let all my life ♪ ♪ Testify hallelujah ♪ ♪ We are not alone ♪ ♪ God really loves us ♪ ♪ God really loves us ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh praise my soul ♪

♪ God really loves us ♪ ♪ God really loves us ♪ Jeremiah 1, 5. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before. lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. Galatians 4-7. You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, if a daughter, then an heir through God. His mercy is enough. His grace is sufficient. So come if you need, forgive me so healing. His grace is enough. And this is our hope, the cross in a spoken. And that is no more. Christ is the Lord. Oh, this is our hope. Hallelujah. We are not alone. That God really loves us. Yes, God really loves us. Hallelujah. Oh, praise my soul. That God really loves us. Yes, God really loves us. Jeremiah 29-11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a hope in the future. Psalm 18-19. He brought me out into a broad place. He rescued me because he delighted in me. When God thinks about you, he's not going through the roa-dex of sins in your past, and he's also not looking at the list of great stuff you've done. He just delights in you because he names you because your son and his daughter. Psalm 47. Does even though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me no matter what your earthly father did or did a model about a good God who loves you no matter what. Is that what your earthly mother modeled or not? God says, "I am the Father who loves you just because you're mine." What a father we have. What a father what a father what a friend what a Savior it is oh what a father what a friend what a Savior is. Hallelujah. We are not alone because God really loves us. God really loves us. Hallelujah. Oh praise my soul. God really loves us. God really loves us. Do you stand right now? Remember these words are not normal words. These are the words of the one who spoke in reality came to me. These are the words that can change you. It reshaped you. These are the words that can push your feet on the solid rock. These are the words that can change your past. They get you a vision for the future and so I want you to stand as a sign of saying God when you saturate me with your word with believing that what you say is true for me even me from head to toe. Your father says this James 1 18. He chose to convert to us by giving us his true word and we out of all creation at every amazing majestic mountainscape out of every sunrise that every beautiful sunset he ever painted he says we out of all creation became this prized possession us you. I say a 46 for

even to your old age and gray hairs. I am he. I gave you a sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how far away you walk. It doesn't matter how much life you think you've sworn to God says I am still for you still in Zephaniah 3 17. The Lord your God is in your midst. A mighty one who will say he will rejoice. (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music)

(Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) Thank you for spending a few minutes with us today. My encouragement is simple. Don't just hear God's word today. Take one step because of it. Maybe that's open in your Bible. Maybe it's spending a few quiet minutes in prayer. Maybe it's forgiving someone or asking for forgiveness or simply saying yes to whatever God has put in front of you today. Whatever that next step is, take it. This message occurs you. We love to hear from you. Send us a video ground or write to us at [email protected] when you're fabulous. Our team reads every letter. We'd love to walk alongside you. Till next time, keep pursuing Jesus. Keep opening his word. Keep saying yes to him one day at a time. See you soon.