Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "Love Crosses Thresholds" | Sunday Service | March 30, 2025

Transcript

"Love Crosses Thresholds" | Sunday Service | March 30, 2025 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give a message this morning called Love Crosses Thresholds.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to do this with probably a familiar passage, but I'm always a little bit nervous to say this because I know that all of you come from a variety of different places in your life.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: You come from a variety of different spiritual places in your life and experiences in your life.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to take this to a familiar parable.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody tell me what a parable is.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: A story, yeah.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take it to a very familiar parable.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if you've never heard this before in your life, my hope is that this morning this will transform you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I say that is because I was walking through Publix this week.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was checking out uh from Publix and getting some stuff that we needed for the weekend and all that sort of thing.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm checking out, it's early Friday morning, and uh this lady sees the cross in the olive branch of the Wesley logo on why do we not have that anywhere?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right over there.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the cross in the Wesley on on my shirt.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she asks me what my plans were for the weekend.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I told her I had to go to a wedding last night, and then I was gonna be at church this Sunday, and she was like, Oh, okay.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what kind of church are you at?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, I'm actually the pastor at a campus ministry at FSU, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and she was like, Oh, what are you preaching on this week?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I told her, Prodigal son.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she looked at me and she goes, This is somebody who's like familiar with church.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she understands and she goes, I've never heard that story before.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: In a wild, I was like, What?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the first story I ever heard.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, whether you have heard the story a thousand times or never heard before, whether you like it or you don't, I'm gonna invite you into hearing this story uh together.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to Luke's gospel.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is the 15th chapter.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's, we're starting at verse 11, we're going to 32, so just buckle in a little bit.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we got a few verses.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, A certain man had two sons.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: How many sons?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Two.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be really important.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: The younger son said to his father, Father, give me my share of the inheritance.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then the father decid divided his estate between them.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Soon afterward, the younger son gathered everything together and took a trip to a land far away, not like Star Wars.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: There he wasted his wealth through extravagant living.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love some other translations say riotous living.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: That means a little more than just extravagant, it means a little bit wasteful.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: When he had used up his resources, a severe food shortage arose in the country and he began to be in need.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let this be a reminder to you that your money may not last forever.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: There may be a recession, there might be a food shortage, and so if you spend it all on Nintendo, you will waste it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: He hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed what?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Pigs, yeah, not great.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: He longed to eat his fill from what the pigs ate, even worse.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But no one gave him anything.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm starving to death.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I will get up and I will go to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I no longer deserve to be called your son.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Take me on as one of your hired hands.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So he got up and he went to his father.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: His father ran to him, he hugged him, and he kissed him.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then his son said, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: He rehearsed this part.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I no longer deserve to be called your son.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, got it, nailed the line.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the father said to his servants, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it, poor calf.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: We must celebrate with feasting, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was lost and is found.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they begin to celebrate.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: End of story, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's verse 25.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now his older son was in the field.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: How many sons did he have?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be important.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now his older son was in the field, coming in from the field, he approached the house and heard music and he heard dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what was going on.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I might ask the same.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: The servant replied, Your brother has arrived, and your father has slaughtered, slaughtered the fattened calf, because he received his son back safe and sound.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then the older son was furious, I could see that coming, and didn't want to enter in.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: But his father came out and begged him.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then he answered his father, Look, I've served you all these years.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I never disobeyed your instruction.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, you've never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when this son of yours returned, notice how he doesn't call him brother.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This son of yours.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's get into this down just a little bit.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: That'll take that feedback out.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be great, thank you.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: After gobbling up your state on prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then his father said, Son, you are always with me.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I have is yours.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: But he had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and alive.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what the father calls him back.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, you said son of yours, he says brother of yours, was dead and is alive.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was lost and is found.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's true or not.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the internet.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a practice that new couples have when they get married, that when they find their new house, they get their new house and they're all excited because they have no more money, and they get their keys to their new house, and they, you know, posted this all over Instagram.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We have like closed on our house, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then they get to their new home, and then the husband picks up the wife and carries her over the threshold.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the Romans started or not, but I like to think that they did, okay?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has become a part of tradition that there is this time where you carry somebody over a threshold, and I don't care if it's like whoever carries in the relationship, carries over the threshold, but it's this moment of like something new happening when I carry you over the threshold.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's a decision happening here, there's a change happening here.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Holy cow, we have our new home.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's marking a transition.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not only is it a transition in the sense that it's like a transition from outside to inside, but there's some sort of metaphorical transition happening here too.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: My uncle was a floor for a long time, and I learned when I was uh growing up that the little spot in between like where the flooring changes from room to room is literally called a transition and sometimes called a threshold, but it's certainly always called a threshold at the front of the house.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's an outside world and an inside world, and there's this difference between the two, and it marks this sort of change that happens when you cross the threshold.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Being carried over a threshold is a moment of a decision being made.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're when you're gonna go through a threshold, there's something magical happening there, something special happening there, there's a decision being made.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been to a neighbor's house or somebody and you knocked on their door and then you kind of have the conversation over the threshold, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like the door's open, but they haven't quite welcomed you in, and then when they finally welcome you in, you're like, uh, okay, all right, yeah, I'll come in.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I trust you, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a decision being made there.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm told some of the ancients used to think that the threshold, that spot underneath the door between the outside and the inside, that's where the spirits lived.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's actually why the husband would carry the wife over the threshold is to keep the spirits from coming in through her feet.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's true or not, but it might be.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to show you this morning, or at least try to, that it's the father's decision to cross that threshold that defines this story.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: The father makes a series of decisions that he didn't have to make in this story, but he makes them and he's crossing, crossing that threshold.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, how many sons are there?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start with a premise.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Both sons here are lost.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is not usually the way this is preached.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Usually what happens is we talk about the love of the father.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'll run to the father, I'll fall into grace, I'm done with the hiding, no reason to wait.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: My heart needs a my soul needs a so I'll run to the father again and again and again.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of this story.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see that the father is actually the one that does the running, but okay, I'll take it.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then we tell this story, it's called the prodigal son because the word prodigal means extravagant, it means wasteful.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: It means like he's done something extra that is not good with the money that he had, and so he's wasteful.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he is a prodigal son.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But how many sons are there?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two! I told you that was gonna be important.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: My premise is that it's not just the younger son who's lost, the older son is lost as well.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Both sons are lost.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make a couple of key points here this morning.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the first is that love is the action here.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Love is what's actually crossing the threshold, and love always moves first.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: The son.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: He let's just say he had some confidence.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Could we say that?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you are, and you should learn this now before you go home to your parents and ask for your inheritance.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: They may say what my parents would say, what inheritance?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so that may be your situation, whatever.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it takes a little confidence, no matter how much wealth there is, it takes a little confidence for the child to go to the parents before said parent has passed and say, Hey, give me my share of the inheritance.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really interesting conversation here at the beginning because he just kind of asks for it and the father gives it to him.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which I don't know.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got two kids, they have no inheritance, but I got two kids, and if they were to come ask for it, I'd be like, What?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you talking about?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then he goes away and he wastes it all on riotous living, on extravagant living.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: He wastes it all.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: All of it, all of it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you how much he wasted.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: How much?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, here's how much it, here's how here's he's eating with the pigs.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you thought, well, you know, he saved a little bit for a rainy day.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, it is gone.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he spent it on.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Riotous living.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It says later, prostitutes.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, wasn't there.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wasted it all on riotous living.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: How much?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: All on riotous living.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then he finally decides, well, I've got to get my act together.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go home and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna beg forgiveness.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna be like, ah, dad, I I screwed it up.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know I shouldn't have screwed it up.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've probably told me not to screw it up, but I did screw it up, and he starts rehearsing the lines.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you've ever asked your parents for something, you rehearsed those lines too, didn't you?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent I have rehearsed lines that I have said to my parents to make sure I am getting the narrative straight as to what I am asking for.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's at that point.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So he goes back, and uh he then nails the lines.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was great.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like they copy-pasted from the earlier part, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: That he just absolutely nails that spot.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the father sees him from a long way off, though.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you caught that part of the story.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: The father's presumably inside the house.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The father is inside the house, and the son is out there.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to get a visual on what this looks like.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because this, usually when it's depicted in art, you know, it's this son running home to the father, and father, it's actually opposite of that, okay?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: The father is sitting inside the house, probably enjoying the rest of his money, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden the son is coming forward.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta imagine this guy's been eating with pigs, he ain't clean.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta imagine that he probably sold everything that he had.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: He sold his clothes, he sold whatever he could, and he comes back and he's like rehearsing these lines in his mind, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh God, okay, okay, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against earth.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am no longer worth wait, I'm no longer worthy.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer worthy.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's happening.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the father, he takes off.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: He runs all the way through.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is so important because it's the father that runs, it's not the son.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the son.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see in that moment a change happens?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see in that moment, let's take that down, please.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: In that moment, some sort of decision has happened.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: The father had a lot of options.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: The one he chose was love.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't sit there and wait for the speech.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: He just took off.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Love moves first.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It crosses threshold.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to show you a picture of a really old dude.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: His name is anybody know?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody said Wesley.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's not John Wesley, but it's not Charles Wesley.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But close, you're getting close.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody know?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody is.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody looked the same back then, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just everybody looked the same.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were the same.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is John Newton.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody know, okay.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've heard of John Newton.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's John Newton known for?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's Isaac Newton, yeah, different dude.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant man.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Probably the most brilliant man to have ever lived, but wrong dude.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, John Newton, famous for writing what hymn, do you know?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing Grace.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something people don't know about John Newton because we love to remember the good parts.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal about John Newton.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: He actually was a British slave owner.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he was an advocate for slavery in Britain.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he was a tradesman.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: He actually got into it because he was a captain of a ship, and so he would he would go back and forth and grab the slaves from Africa and bring them over.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was a horrible thing, but it was a business.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he bought into it for a long time until he ends up in this really, really bad storm and nearly dies.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in his journals that that is the moment in which God spoke into him and he made a drastic change to now advocate against slavery rather than for it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in those moments that amazing grace gets written.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I once was lost, and now I'm found.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: But now I see.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a grace that happens in your life before you even know it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a grace that God pours over you before you ever had the chance to even understand what it even was.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a grace that goes way, way, way before you.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he articulated in this is that God is moving in love first, making a decision to cross the threshold to go toward the sun.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Second point, and this is important to what we were talking about earlier.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lost looks different.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Both sons are lost.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to fix this.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The older is lost in his rebellion.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: That part's oh lord.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Clear clear that, Hannah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just click that clear.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here you go.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now go to the next one.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, well, we'll get there.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lost looks different.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So for all you know, we're testing a live stream.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the camera is up there.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're not doing it yet though.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hear that, Jackie?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lost looks different.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: If we could just turn that down, Willis.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we could just turn that down, that'd be great.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh lost looks different.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: We are really good in our world.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're really good at defining what lost means for everyone else.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're really good at defining what sin means for everyone else.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're real good at it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why this story is framed in prodigal son, the extravagantly wasteful son, the one who just he is the worst.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: How dare he?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: How dare he waste?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then the story becomes then about the father.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it is about the father.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the second half of the story is so important.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is the older son is lost not in his rebellion as the younger son was, he's lost in his resentment.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was serving a church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is, oh Lord, 12 years ago.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a very wealthy, like center of the whole living area of that area, uh church.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: They had 5,000 members.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Huge church.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Four or five services on a Sunday.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's the type of church where if you were to walk in and you sat in the wrong pew, Mary Ann was gonna come down the aisle and tell you.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your home church might be like this too.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, hey, everybody's just got their seat, and that's where they sit, and they've been sitting there for 25 years, and how dare you ever change that?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that the church started to experiment with is because they did have a lot of people experiencing homelessness in the area that would come in.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I've shared some stories about that that I was not super fond of, but one of the things that I love that the church did that summer is they tried to invite some of those experiencing homelessness into the service.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And most of them wanted to go to the contemporary service, so they would come in to the contemporary service, and I tell you what, it didn't take very long before the comments started happening.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: They always happen over email.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: They always happen not face to face.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: How dare I say something like that face to face?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Emails where I can hide.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they would come in and they or they would write in and they would complain.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, about the smells.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or oh, about the people that maybe they could go to a different service.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want them to not be at church, they just don't want to be in their service.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: They certainly don't want them to sit in their pew.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: It could be argued that the loss, we understand them, but we often forget our own loss.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: We forget our own resentment.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: We miss it completely, we're blind to it, we don't we don't understand it at all.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times we need that father to cross a threshold even for us, even for us.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Christians, the father must cross the threshold.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I love about it is the father's inside, he runs out, I won't do it again.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's outside, and the son is upset, the older son is upset, and he comes back inside, making yet another decision.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm going to speak to this lost son of mine as well.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so he does.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Hey, I know, I know that you wanted a party.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you feel like you never got that party.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: You've always had that party in me.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: But we gotta celebrate somebody who comes back.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: You see how it's like a grace-filled moment?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't judge him, he doesn't condemn him.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He just says, hey, back.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Last point.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Love chooses to move for everyone.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: The older son, the younger son.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: The one inside, the one outside.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: The person you thought you were better than, and you.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of the gospel.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: In a few weeks.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Easterfest 2025.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna celebrate the risen Savior who was killed on a cross on Good Friday, spent a few days in the grave, and is risen again as an act of forgiveness and of love.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: The ultimate act of forgiveness and love in which somebody would give of themselves for you and then not let death win, he's resurrected.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: For everyone.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that we're so good at forgetting that part?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that we're so good at thinking like God died for me?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know about them.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about that person I interacted with at the bar the other night.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about what they were doing.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about that person who chose that way of life.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about the person that chose that way of life.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know about that person who like maybe they chose a career that really takes advantage of a lot of things.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know that God died for them.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: The funny, funny, funny thing about it is that a John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world, the whole freaking world.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that whoever, not whoever, whatever, whoever, meaning everybody who believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, the younger son, the older son.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that can happen is that love would make that decision.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: That love would cross into your life as it crossed into mine.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: That love will cross into your friend's life as it crossed into yours.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: We talked at the beginning about thresholds being a moment of decision.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was convicted by something this week.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: God makes that decision.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: The decision to forgive, the decision to correct as he does with the older brother, the decision to welcome us in with open arms and run to us for it.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: God makes that decision not just 2,000 years ago on a cross and resurrected.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: God makes that decision in your life every day.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: God is God.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose if God was not a loving God, God could choose something else.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: But God chose from the beginning to love you every day.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you are the young son.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're the older son.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: How many sons you got?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, God is choosing every day to love you more than you've ever thought possible.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a choice.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a choice that we have to make in each other's lives.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you who feel like you're the older son, that you know the younger son in your life, how come they didn't get that?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: How come they got that I didn't get that?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: How come bad things happen to good people?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd encourage you to reach out to the person you're thinking of right now, sometime this week.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Remind them of the love of God.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a decision.