Waters Church

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we want to say good morning and welcome to
our locations, the Paula Beaje winzak At, Guatemala future South
coast location, nor would anyone else watching around the world
online and on YouTube. Let us know where you're watching
from in the comments below, like subscribe. We appreciate it,
and everybody here is going to let you know we
love you and you are part of us.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Come on, let's.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome them in and you welcome us in.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome Home. I'm in a message series.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm closing out a message series called Come Home, and
we've been looking at the story of the prodigal Son,
Jesus's most potent, most memorable, most beloved story in all
the 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.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
If you want to download one real.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Quick, because you feel 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 Easter today. We are
talking about Easter, and the title of my message is
the theme of my message. The supposed to Sunday, the

(01:06):
supposed to do Sunday and Luke fifteen is where we're
gonna go in just a moment to 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 you always forget what day you're supposed to
put out the trash receptacles?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Anybody like me on that I forget?

Speaker 1 (01:26):
I have two reminders in my phone, one in the
morning tomorrow's trash day. One in the evening tonight put
out the trash because tomorrow's trash day.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
And still I.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Forget what day I was supposed to put out the
trash cans.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I wake up, my head comes off the pillow. Oh no,
that's today.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I run outside and the truck is already gone, you know,
And so there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I have to find somewhere else to dump my trash.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Forgive me if I've used a dumpster somewhere near you anyway?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
How to know?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
There are supposed to seasons like December is the supposed
to what season supposed to by gifts, y'all, y'all celebrate Christmas.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Run here, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Christmas shopping season. July fourth coming up, that's the supposed
to set off illegal fireworks. Stay, how many love you
some of illegal fireworks in Massachusetts? Hopefully you're not sitting
next to a police officer right now. Then two days ago,
I don't know if you knew this, but it was

(02:32):
supposed to file your taxes day. Some of you were like,
I gotta leave church right now. I forgot about that.
And then all the husbands in the house. You know
that there is one day of the year that you
can't afford to forget. All the husbands what day Mother's Day?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Leave and cleave, my friend, leave and cleave.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Your anniversary for every man is different. And if you
forget that day, she's supposed to not give you sex
that night.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Come on, you know what I'm talking about. You gotta
remember that day.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
That day is important supposed today, that's just supposed to day.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
I was supposed to show my wife that I really really.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
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 church day, the supposed
to go to church day. It's Easter supposed to And
I wonder who's here today?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Simply because you're supposed to.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Like, you know, you weren't here last weekend and you're
probably not gonna be here next weekend. So I don't
feel bad about offending you for the next forty five minutes.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
And this is the day, this.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Is the day that we're supposed to remember that Jesus
of life. We're supposed to celebrate. We're supposed to be excited.
But A wonder who here? Man, You started your life
with God so on fire, so excited, but somewhere along
the way you kind of tapered off in the excitement.
You kind of got a little bit into the routine
of life. Or maybe you had kids, or maybe you
got married, or maybe you got a new job, or

(04:01):
maybe it got just so overwhelmed with life, and before
you knew it, what used to be a get to Sunday,
I get to worship Jesus, I get to go and
celebrate the Lord is alive became a supposed today became
a day where I, yes, Easter was supposed to go.
Let's go, Let's pack up the kids, come on, let's
get into the car.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Let's try not to fight on the way to church.
You know that you do that right? You fight all
the way cats and dogs come into the church. How
are you happy? Easter? Good to see you. That's what
we do. It's supposed to Sunday. And I want to
talk to the supposed to saints.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Today because like Chris just sat up here in North
Donoborough and I'm sure Kenny and Uh and Jim and
the other locations pastors have talked about this. We do
this every week. Every week. Jesus is alive. Every week,
Jesus saves. Every week we get to celebrate that this

(05:00):
life might stink, but it is not the final act
in our story. There is coming a great redemption. Jesus
is gonna crack the sky. Every knee will bow every
time will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to
the glory of God the Father.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I'm excited for that day. I don't got to I
don't have to worship Jesus.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
I get to worship Jesus and I want to encourage
you to come back.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
We're gonna start a series called Last Day's next week.
You don't want to miss that series.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
But I just I want to 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
and you're supposed to days and not even make it
to the courts of heaven.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
I don't want that for you, and neither it as
the Lord.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
And we're talking about Luke fifteen, probably Jesus's most famous story.
Luke fifteen, the story of a father and two sons.
And we call this.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Story the story of the feeling the blank prodigal son.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, but it's actually the story of two prodigal sons, two,
not one.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Two.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
The first one is the obvious one, the rebel, the
one who says, Dad, I want my inheritance. Now I
want you dead, and I want my life. I want
to do my life on my turns. And I'm gonna
go out there and get myself a life without you,
because you have held.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Me back long enough.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
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 sure a few rebels. Any rebels in the house,
I'm scared to say it, aren't you?

Speaker 2 (06:35):
You scared? You don't want to be judged.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
You know why, you know why you don't want to
say anything, because you're probably sitting next to an older
brother or an oldest sister. Because remember, that boy came
to himself. He ran out, He got wild and wasted
and wasted his father's possessions and slept around and did
all the things the devil convinces us it's so much fun,
and he ended up feeding pigs.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
He ended up in like a lot of you. You
were enslaved.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
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, you were stuck, trapped and
slave to what was formally fun. The Bible says that
he came to himself and he realized that his father's
servants kind it better than him, and so he made
a pack. He made a commitment. I'm gonna come back
and I'm gonna hire myself out to my father. And

(07:23):
he has this prepared speech, and it's a beautiful story.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Father. I've sitted against Heaven, against you, and I'm no
longer ready to call your son.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Make me like one of your services, and he's on
the way back to the house and he only gets
these words out because the father runs him, and he
only gets the words, Father, I've sitting against heaven and
against earth. And he can't even say, make me like
one of your service. The Father interrupts him because he's
not gonna make him a slave. He's gonna restore him
as a son. And he says, quick, quick, bring the
best role, put it on, and put sandals on his feet, ring.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
On his finger, and kill the fat and calf. Because
my son is alive again.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Let's celebrate, because God loves to throw a party. You
know why you love parties because you're made in the image.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Of God, who has a party planned for the end
of the world.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
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.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, that's the end. That's how it ends. It ends
with the party, and the party is going on.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
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 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.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
You can't out sin the grace of God.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
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 six.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
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.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
But then there is this other boy in the story,
and we're going to 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, we do
not read the words of 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 twenty five,

(09:20):
Luke fifteen, now his older brother or his older 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 one of the servants and asked what
these things meant. And the servants said to him, your
brother has come home, and your father has killed the
fat and calf because he has received him back safe

(09:43):
and sound.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
But he was what angry, and he refused to go in.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
His father came out and entreated him, but he answered,
his father, Look, these many years have served you, and
I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me
a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
But when this son of yours comes, who has.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Wasted your property with prostitutes, you kill the fat and
calf for him. And he said to him, son or
in the Greek, my child, you were always with me,
and all that.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I have is yours.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this brother.
Your brother was dead and 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 have called to yourself.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Help my words to be what you want them to be.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
And may the meditation of all of our hearts be
pleasing in your sight, and help us to see Jesus.
In his name, we pray, and everybody said, Amen, Amen, God,
bless you, God bless you.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Have a seat, Have a seat.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Henry Nowen is a name you want to be familiar
with as a Christian. He was a Catholic, but he
was a 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 theology beyond all of his peers. He held

(11:28):
prestigious positions in the academies of Yale, Notre Dame, in Harvard.
This guy reached the pinnacle of theological success and at
age fifty four, Henry Nowen resigned his tenured position at
Harvard Divinity, moved himself to Toronto, Ontario, moved into a

(11:53):
home for the mentally disabled, and spent the last ten
years of his life ministering to those people in absolute
unknownness and absolute undercover no one knew. And the question
is what would inspire a man was so much to
his name, to his credit, so much reputation, to just

(12:16):
give it up at fifty four and go and live
in obscurity with those who no one cared about.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, back up in the story.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
And he had taken a vacation, well, not a vacation,
he'd taken it. He had taken a year long sabbatical
while he was a professor at Harvard. And he went
to Paris, France, to 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

(12:47):
Return of the Prodigal, and he was so moved by
it he looked at it for several minutes and he
realized that he needed to go see the real painting,
the original painted in the seventeenth century by Rembrandt, a
man who collected massive works of art. His wife died
of tuberculosis. He lost three of his four children, and

(13:08):
only one survived and even died before that that son
even died before him. And then he died in absolute poverty.
But now he lives in infamy, in world fame as
one of the greatest portrait painters ever. Rembrandt and so
Henry now and through connections with friends, managed to secure
travel to Saint Petersburg, Russia, then Leningrad under Soviet Communism,

(13:30):
but now back to Saint Petersburg and he went to
the Hermitage Museum, and through other connections he was able
to secure private time to stand before this painting, The
Return of the Prodigal, and for eight hours a day.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
For an entire week.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Henry Nowlan stared at that painting one painting, and it
brought tears to his eyes. And he watched as the
sun cascaded through the windows across the painting, highlighting different
portions of the painting as the day progressed, and he
couldn't get over this painting. It struck him in the heart.
And I want to put a picture of this painting

(14:08):
on the screen for you. This is what he was
overwhelmed with. And Rembrandt was known to break new ground
in the artistic world because he introduced the idea of
creating light in portress and in oil paintings to represent
the places that you're supposed to focus on, and then
leaving some portions black so as to draw your attention

(14:29):
there and draw.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Out a contrast.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
And using artistic license, he brings together the father 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 is out on the field.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
So to represent the older brother, he just has him
standing there.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
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 on the
top left forehead of the father, and it kind of
cast caids down the right side of his face down
across Beard threw his arms over his hands onto the
back of the prodigal son, kneeling, disheveled, his head shaved,

(15:06):
the symbol of shame in that society, his clothing wreck
look at his feet down at the bottom, one sandal off,
one sandal wrecked on the right side. And all of
the light there is meant to draw you into the
fact that the Father receives us back as we are.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's a beautiful moment.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
And Hawry and Allen talks about how for hours he
just reveled in the grace and the mercy of God
for lost prodigals. 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.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Is the face of the older brother.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
And his representation the same as the father, beard, head covering,
red robe, very well dressed, and the light cascades down
across his robe to his hands, not open but folded closed,
and then down to the bottom of his robe, and

(16:02):
you see there's a staff in his hand that reaches
all the way down the 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 older brother who looks like
the father are responding completely different to the return of

(16:23):
the prodigal, that though they looked similar, they couldn't be
farther apart. And then notice something else about artistry. Usually
in art works of art from the seventeenth century, the
middle of the painting is supposed to be the center focus.
Whatever's in the middle of the painting, that's supposed to

(16:45):
be your focus. And if you look at this painting,
what do you see in the middle? You see what darkness?

Speaker 2 (16:53):
And Henry now and talks about.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
How Rembrand did that on purpose to draw this idea,
to illustrate this concept of how much distance, how much
space was between the father and the older brother. And
then if you were a biblical theologian at all, if
you've read Luke chapter fifteen at all, you realize that
that Jesus told the story of the return of the
prodigal Son not for the prodigals who were returning alone,

(17:18):
but for the older brothers who refused to receive them.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
It says that the.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Tax collectors in the first verse of Luke fifteen, the
tax collectors and the sinners were all drawn 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, to that context,
Jesus shares the story of the prodigal son, and Rembrandt
captures all of it in his beautiful work of art

(17:46):
and Henry now and talks about the fact that his life,
if he was to be absolutely honest, 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 are you supposed to do? Here's a good man,

(18:06):
a moral person, a good person, and on top of
all that, a biblical theologian and successful and he realized
that all 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

(18:27):
actual reality of the.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Gospel where lost people come and find hope.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
And on returning from Saint Petersburg and enjoying that painting
for a solid week, he resigned his position and moved
to Toronto and helped them mentally disabled until the day
of his death in nineteen ninety six. But he left
us with a wonderful book titled The Return of the
Prodigal that unpacks all the details of that moment. And

(18:57):
he writes in that book, not only did the younger
son who left home get lost, but the one who
stayed home.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Also became a lost man.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
On the outside, he did all the things a son
is supposed to do, but interiorly he wandered away from
his father.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
I don't know about you, but there is a huge.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Difference between get to and supposed to. I don't know
where you are on the spectrum of coming to God.
Prodigals over here, all their dutiful sons over here.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Can I tell you the Gospel speaks to both sons, to.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
The one who has gone out and wondered and done
his own thing. The Gospel says, you can be forgiven.
And to the one who's been good and moral and
upright and a good citizen, a nice put together person.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Can I tell you that.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
All your goodness the Bible sa, all your righteousness, and
all your morality is not enough to make you acceptable
before God. You need the blood of Jesus Christ to
cleanse you just as much as the prodigals do.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
And sometimes, if I'm honest as a.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Preacher, it is so much 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.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
It is what they do that makes them right before God.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
And I got to tell you today it has nothing.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
To do with that.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
For by grace you have been saved through faith and
it is not your own doing. And I want to
ask you, if you've become an older brother, are you
supposed to say? Are you supposed to say it? I mean,
you're here on Easter Sunday, they're supposed to Sunday. And
let me just offend you a little bit longer write
this down. If you're taking notes, and if you're not

(20:55):
taking notes, write this down. You've become an older brother
when you serve, but don't celebrate. When you serve, but
don't celebrate. What I mean by that is you do
the right thing you serve. In Jesus's story, where do
we meet the where do we first encounter the older brother?
Where is he located in the field? Verse twenty five.

(21:19):
Now his older son was where in the field? The
field symbolizes what work he's probably getting up every morning.
Gotta go out to that field. What supposed to Dad
wants me to. Gotta go fix that.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Plow for the fifteenth time. Gotta do it? Why it
supposed to do? It's what I do. It's what I do.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
The old man doesn't can't 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
to the house. And this is very intriguing. He heard
music and dancing. How's anyone in all of our locations
ever heard music and dancing? Just for Jeanne real quick,

(22:01):
this is Regeane. Okay, yeah, yeah, we've all heard it.
Look what he does though, and he called one of
the servants and asked what these things meant? How dry
and stuff you have to be to not recognize what
music and dancing mean. It means something good just happened.

(22:24):
But he's so disconnected from joy, he's so disconnected from celebration.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
He has no idea. Do you know why?

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Because he's too busy trying to build a life for himself.
He's so busy. He's raising kids to be good citizens. He's,
you know, being a good husband, he's doing good things
for the community.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
He's a good person.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
He's your average American sitting on the PTA committee, putting
his garbage out on the right day of the week.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
And he's so locked up in his service.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
To the father. He has no connection with the heart
of the Father. I don't even know what music and
dancing means. Just because you're too busy trying your hardest
to be a good person.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
That makes you a miserable Christian. I tell you, it
makes you a miserable religious elitist.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
But the Bible says very clearly that you don't get
saved by your work.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
If he's us to it, I just said it. Grace,
you even say through.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
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 think is
good is different from what foreigners think is good.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
So why don't you think for a second, what's the
level of goodness that you need to attain?

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Jesus told us in Matthew chapter five.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
He said, the level is this perfect.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
You need to be perfect as you're having The Father
is perfect. Does anybody got that down? One of us,
including yours. Truly, 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

(24:14):
to bring you.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
And make you good enough, not through your works, but
through his grace.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
And when you know that there's joy to be had,
there's gladness to be had, to know that 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
past the pearly case and to enter into eternal joy

(24:41):
and celebrate with my.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Father for all eternity. That's it.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
But so many Christians, and so many churches, entire denominations have.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
No joy, have no joy.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
You think I'm amped up for Easter. I'm like this
every day week 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 went to the wedding of Cana not to perform

(25:18):
a miracle, but to just have fun.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
I'm pro fun.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Give me a politician who wants to run on the
platform make America fun again.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
I'll vote for that guy.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Where's the fun. The Fund's been gone for two years.
We need to bring the fun back. We need to
bring the happiness back. We need to bring the joy back.
You've seen what happens when the fund's gone. We attack
each other, We hate each other, We pointed each other.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
We need to bring the fun back.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
When we were building out this location here in north Atliborough,
I remember we had a grumpy, old curmudgeon of a contractor.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
His name was Dave, and he was a funny guy.
And we were go in and we would say, hey, Dave,
how's it going, and he would go miserable, Kay, Dave,
Well keep.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Going, curmudgeon. And we were showing him the cafe and
what was gonna look like at d He's like, man,
I'll tell you Protestants, you have it over us Catholics
every day.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
I said, why he goes at my church. As soon
as the pastor says the final benediction of this.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Stood the door, I'm like, yeah, well, we like to
have a party, we like to celebrate. We do it
all our locations, you know how, hang out, have some coffee,
get to know some people, joke around, Like that's what
the church.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Is supposed to do. It's supposed to have fun.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
So yesterday we had the egg drop here in Northottorborough.
We've had egg hunts at all of our locations, and
some curmudgeons left to say, hey, sir.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
It's not about eggs and bunnies. It's about Jesus. Well,
yes it is, but the eggs and the bunnies make
it fun. I'm pro fun. You just not sindfold to
crack an egg and give a prize. Amen.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
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
see sitting in the boxes the Easter Bunny costume, and I.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Think, why not? What do I have to do? I
have to ask?

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh, that's right, nobody, I'm the lead pastor. So I
dropped onto my skivies and I put the thing on
real quickly. I first went into the bathroom, dropped down
to my skivies, put the thing on, and I thought
to myself, this is gonna be fun. I'm gonna go
out there with the fifteen hundred kids waiting for the
egg drop, and I'm good as Mingo pat some kids

(27:43):
in the head hug.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Some people dance around as the Easter Bunny. I was mistaken.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I got five feet out the door and a rushing
stampede of six year olds.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
And soccer moms came flying toward me.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
I immediately thought, I've made a horrible mistake. It was
like Kim Kardashian's showing up at a porn convention. Yeah,
it's like Justin Bieber showing up at junior prom Okay,
that's better. Lord forgive him, for he knows not what

(28:23):
he does. Anyway, suddenly a line forms, and then I'm like,
oh my goodness, this is gonna be horrible. The little
kid lier rugresser, 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.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
This is awful. We had a video of it here
on the screen and you.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Can see I'm hugging and hanging out, but this is
the line.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Look at the line. Look at the line. It was
like that for an hour.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Then I was up in a helicopter and I was
dumping eggs out, sweating from the top. I had a
snow to my feet. Well, you know, it's good to
have fun. That wasn't fun, but you know it was
all right anyway. Man, I was suddenly all this, All

(29:18):
these thoughts started to flood as I was thinking about
this weekend's message and I and I realized that there
was two kind of kids that day coming up to
the Easter Bunny.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
The kids who couldn't.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Wait to come and hug me and touch me and
take a picture with me. And then the kids whose
parents had to push them 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 for having sake?

Speaker 2 (29:50):
I'll be like, all right, yo, kid didn't want anything
to do with this, Just shoe them away and that's fine.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
One kid tried to pick up my shoe and see
if it was be underneath. I swatted them away like
an empty egg. Anyway, those are two 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 you're supposed to be there.
And then I thought, this is what God feels like.
This is what God feels like there. And do you

(30:16):
know which kids had to be pushed? The older kids?

Speaker 2 (30:24):
What is it about life that the whole do we get,
the less we celebrate.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
When was the last time you just really just had
a good celebration day that.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Had nothing to do with doing work or trying to
be a good person or you know, putting you know,
your best image of yourself on Instagram and then two
hours later checking how many.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Lights you got. When was the last time you.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
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 loves you, He made the
Son to rise. He's gonna bring you home to be
with him. And you know what this world's made for.
This world has made for his glory, not yours. So

(31:16):
enjoy it to the glory of God like that, and
then to come to church and not to be the
kid who has.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Fathers. Are you one of those fathers?

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Are you one of those fathers that the wife has
to hold your hand.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
To get you to church?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
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
up early and get your kids out of bed and say,
as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
I don't like this sermon so far. I don't like
this sermon. You need it. You're gonna get back to
what faith is all about.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
It is about the joy Lord, the Psalmist says in
Psalm one hundred, make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
All the earth. Now, I got a question for you,
are you part of all the earth? Yes, So this
verse applies to you serve the Lord.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
With gladness, coming to his presence with what singing like this?

Speaker 2 (32:26):
This is commanded. Notice that the verse doesn't say, if
you feel like it, make a joyful noise to the Lord.
It's commanded. And I think on Easter Sunday, of all Sundays.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
I have perission to ask you to command you this
verse upon you can can we at all locasions make
a joyful noise to.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
The Lord on the count of three? Good on Easter?
All right, let's see if we got it.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
And I was ready one, two, three, ha ha.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yes, hallelujah. The Psalmist says in Psalm one twenty two,
I was glad when they said to me, let us
go to the House of the Lord.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Notice that it doesn't say I was glad when they said,
I mean let us go watch the Patriots.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Or the box.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
No, I was glad when I said let's go to church. Yes,
if you've been miserable at church, let me just tell
you've been wat the wrong church. You know the scripture,
the Bible book that has the most terms of celebration
in it. You'll never believe in what Bible book talks
about celebrating the most, You'll never guess Leviticus.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yet that's the book you skip.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
When you try to read through the Bible in a year,
because there's there's a command in the scriptures of Leviticus
to say, come to the Lord's house three times a
year and celebrate for seven straight days, three times a year.
The Jews from all over we're supposed to make a
pilgrimage back to Jerusalem, and on the first day of
the week they would have a solemn celebration, a day

(34:06):
of rest. Imagine if we just said to the whole nation, hey,
everybody just rests he you know what I'm saying, Let's
shut the Wi fi off for twenty four hours.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Somebody be like, I would never rest if that was
the case.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
But this is what Israel was supposed to do, and
it says, when you gather in the produce of your land,
you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. Man,
we go to parties for four hours were done. The
Jews were like seven days. Man, it's biblical. 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

(34:43):
joy in it. The joy of the Lord, the Bible says,
is our strength. Back to the text in Luke fifteen
twenty seven, it says, and he said to him, your
brother has come, and your father's killed the fat and
calf verse twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
But he was what.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
And he refused to go in Oh, just see this
picture of a man just getting so stuffy, mad, I
don't want to go. In point number two, if you're
taking notes, you become an older brother when you obey
out of obligation, supposed to church, supposed to do, supposed
to be.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
This is what the brother was about. This is what
the older brother was about, the true prodigal of this story.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Now listen to these words in verse twenty nine, 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 you. Now the word serve
is softened there in the ESV. The real word in
Greek is do loss. It means to be a slave.
So literally he says, look, father, these many years I

(35:52):
have slaved for you. Imagine parents, your child saying that
to you, and I never disobeyed your command, liar, Anyone
who's at kids knows that's not possible.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
And you never gave me even a young goat. Now
I might celebrate with my friends.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Wow, here's what it means to obey God out of obligation.
Because you think that if you're a good person, that
God automatically is required.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
To give you good things.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
You think, well, I went to church on Easter Sunday,
I'm due for a good week. You know, that's just
sanctified selfishness.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
That's what that is.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
You do if you serve God, if you do the
good things that God wants you to do, so that
God will give you the thing that you want to have.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
The question is, who are you really serving.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
You? This boy's problem, that's what the Pharisees and the
religious leave.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
His problem was. That's why they had such a hard
time with Jesus hanging out with sinners.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
How dare he give them good things? You're like, Oh,
I'm so glad I'm not an older brother. Okay, let
me do a couple of tests. From his words, notice
the frustration in his life. Look, these many years I've
slaved for you. Frustrated You ever been frustrated with God?

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Frustrated? Where are you. Don't you say what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Frustration is the root of the heart of an older
brother who obeys it of obligation and not out of
the joy that God has rescued you from sin and
helen death. Secondly, the pride of his heart. I never disobeyed.
I am a good person.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
I'm a good son. Don't you notice pride?

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Don't you understand that the original sin was not Eve
eating the fruit, but Satan trying to take God's place
in heaven.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
I will ascend Isaiah fourteen.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
I will arise, I will make myself like the most
high I deserve.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I am a good angel. And God cast him out of.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Heaven like lightning. Why because of pride? I deserve.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
I deserve. I deserve.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
That is an older brother attitude. And then you never
gave me a young goug that I might celebrate.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
With my friends. That's resentment. Resentment.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Some of you are there with God. Hey, let's all
the people I love die. He takes all the good
things away from me. He never lets me have anything
that I really really want. But you get him, you
get him, and Job had that experience, everything that he
had and everything that he'd earned and everything that he
loved was taken away from him. But he said these words,

(38:51):
though he slay me, Yet I will trust in him.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
If he've got God, you've got all that you need.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
And resentment, man, that is a poison pill for a
lot of people in America. Again, you say, I'm so
glad I'm not an older brother. Have you ever believed
or have you ever thought that God blessed someone who
didn't deserve it? You're an older brother or an older sister?
Why does God keep letting them get all that stuff?

(39:21):
I don't understand I know them, No you don't. You
don't know them, and you don't know you, because there's
wickedness in your heart, in my heart that I don't
even understand. The Bible says in Jeremiah seventeen nine that
the heart is desperately wicked.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Who can know it? No one can know it.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
No one can know the true depths of your ability
to cause harm to others.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Only God does.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
And yet in knowing that, he realized that he had
to do something about it and send Jesus to die
for it.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
This is older brother syndrome.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
And notice that his complaint You never gave me, You
never gave me, why did he never get a young goat?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
You know why?

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Simple answer, he never asked. Read the first two verses
of the parable. A father had two sons, and the
younger son has said to the father, I want my
share of the state, and the father divided the estate
between them.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Boom, Just like that? Was he not in the room?
Did he not see what just went down with him
and his younger brother. I mean, all you had to
do was ask, and some of you that's where you
are with God.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
You just gotta ask. You keep thinking that God is
supposed to read your mind and give you.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
What you want.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Just say it, to tell God what you're anxious about,
what you're depressed about.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
We said this on Good Friday, like be anxious for nothing, but.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
In everything, with prayer, petition, with thanksgiving, make a request
known to God. And I wonder if you got a
little bit of a thanksgiving in your line. You know
pastor guys who was here last week, and he was
talking about his friend Donovan, who had passed away. And
I love Donovan and I admired that man greatly, and
he had been here to preach and I just what
a man of God serving God for seven decades of
life and just a powerful preacher and a powerful man.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
And I was watching the tribute of his.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Life and he had a last sermon that they rerecord
a couple of months before his death. And he's struggling
with cancer and he had stage four I believe his
pancreatic cancer. I mean, he was a goner. And he
knew he was a goner. And he said, you know what,
I've made a decision of years ago. I made a
decision that every Thursday was going to be my Thanksgiving Day.
And so every Thursday, in my quiet time, I gave
thanks every single Thursday. And on the last one of
his life, probably one of the last few remaining, he says,

(41:19):
he got up and had intense cancerous pain running through
his body. And he got up in the morning on
Thursday and remembered it was Thanksgiving Day, and he went
outside and he just started to thank God for everything
in his life.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
All the good things. As the body was being eaten
away by cancer.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
His gratitude raised his spirit up to a higher level,
and he was filled with this joy that only God
can give you in the midst of life's darkest pains.
With thanksgiving, you make your request known to God and
the peace of God, which surpasses all knowledge, all understanding,
and regard your heart and mind.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
In Christ Jesus.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
That's how you get out of older brother Syndrome, Mber three.
You've become an older brother when you're disconnected from your
father and your family, when you're disconnected from the people
that you're supposed to be connected to. Because look at
how he talks about his brother Verse thirty. But when

(42:15):
this son of yours, who who? Who? Who?

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Wooh, he's your brother, the son of yours.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
You he's come home, devoured your property, and you kill
the fat and cat for him. What a sour spirit, disconnected,
isolated man has the devil's plan for every single.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
One of you.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Isolation, isolation, isolation. I wonder who I'm talking to here today.
And you don't go to church, Oh, you're online. You
don't go to church because you've let this present evil
culture bring a wedge between you and the community of faith. Oh,
the pastor doesn't like masks. Oh, the pastors not pro
vaccine or the pastor's anti vaccine?

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Are the pastor's anti masks? Oh? Your pastors?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
That's the past says that by the past it says
time I don't agree with and then so you disconnect,
You disconnect from the House of God because you can't
agree with every.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Single thing in my head.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't even agree with everything.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
In my head.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
I don't stop going to church. I need to see
your faces. I need to be with the God God's people.
I need to know you're here and.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
I'm here and we're not alone on this rotating rock
around the sun, that there's a family that I belong
to that's beyond blood, but is rooted in the blood
of Jesus.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Supposed to faith dampens your spirit, sours your soul, and
isolates your life.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
That's not what God wants for any single one of you.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
And then the Father and total Grace says back to
the Son, You're always with me and all that is
mine that's yours. And you finished the sentence. He says,
we had to celebrate for your brothers was dead in
his alife, he was lost. He's found.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Now.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
I want to ask you a question, because every parable
of Jesus is about Jesus.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Where is Jesus in this parable? Do you know where
he is? He's the true older brother. Two definitions of
the older brother.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
You're always with me, Jesus said in John sixteen thirty two.
I am not alone, for the Father is with me.
And the second thing all that I have is yours.
The Father said to the son. Well, Jesus said in
Matthew twenty eight eighteen that all authority on heaven and
earth has been given to me. Jesus Christ is always
with the Father, and he has everything that the Father has,
and he's the true Listen to this sermon in a sentence.

(44:50):
Jesus is our true older brother, seeking us out, restoring
us to the Father, and bringing us home to the
celebration of heaven. And if you've met him, it's never.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Supposed to. Let's get to.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
I get to know Jesus. I get to know my father.
I get to know that death is not the end.
I get to know Heaven. I get to know that
this life and the trials and the subs and downs
is not the final.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Act in my story. And one.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Glad morning, when this life is over, I get to
go and be with him. I want you to stand
with me and buy your heads and close your eyes.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Across all of our locations.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
Would you buy your head and close your eyes for
a moment here as I want to invite people from
all over the place online and here in person and
in all of our locations to say yes to Jesus,
because this is the most important decision you'll ever make
in your life. If you're to face God tonight, if

(46:09):
you were to die Heaven forbid and face God tonight,
what's the reason why you let you in?

Speaker 1 (46:15):
The only reason can be because Jesus. Because Jesus, Because Jesus.
That's the only thing you'll be able to say. That's
the only answer he'll accept. I'm telling you as God
is my witness. Jesus said, I am the Way, I
am the Truth, and I am the Life. No one
comes to the Father except through Me. And so today
and this is a Sunday, the best decision you can

(46:36):
make right now is to say yes to Jesus. Right
where you are, with your headbout, I want to lead
you in a prayer to say yes to Jesus. You
can say it quietly, but please say it with your mouth,
and would you say it from your heart if that's
you you know you need to know Jesus. Repeat after me.
Is a very short prayer and it doesn't save you.
Jesus saves you, but is a confession to come to Christ.
So right where you are, repeat after me, say, Heavenly Father,

(46:58):
today I surrender my life to you, forgive me of
my sin. I repent and turn to you. Have your
way with me. I confess you Jesus Christ as my

(47:20):
Lord and Savior in Jesus' name,