Inland Empire: Riverside
Parable of the Lost Son - Audio
I love that song, and especially the sentiment that it shares. Appreciated Nick Sharon for communion today, and as he was talking about his personal experience with Mimi's birth and how painful it was for him to, after having waited for nine months and anticipation for this incredibly joyful moment to have the first instant that she's in this world be one of panic. And the visual imagery of seeing the doctors desperately trying to resuscitate that newborn child, and to know that the fear that not only is Nick has to feel, but Jim as well. And I just couldn't help but remember both of my children at different times, Scott, before he was born, Jake, three months after he was born, we about lost both of them. And there is nothing that can compare to the fear and the panic of watching your child suffer and being completely unable to do anything about it. And to know that that's how God feels, watching as we struggle, that that's how God had to feel as he wants Jesus to suffer on the cross. And yet there was a reason behind that there was so valuable to God that he was willing and is willing because God is not bound by time, and so he experiences that same moment over and over again every single day. But he was willing to do that, to communicate to you and to me how valuable we are. He loves us that much, that there is nothing he's not willing to do to give us the chance to be together with him. I'm not sure what the cost of raising a child is, I can tell you it's a lot. Minor expensive, they've been the poorest investment I've ever made. It's the gift that keeps on giving. They estimate that to raise a child today and to help support that child through an educational degree will cost about $480,000 per child. That'll give you a pause when you start thinking about getting pregnant. And yet somehow no cost is too much. Because of how much they mean to us, yesterday afternoon Jake and Scott were wanting to do something nice for me for Father's Day, and their mother's convincing that my love language is acts of service, so one of the things that we typically do on my day is we do chores. And I have to admit, I really like that, and yesterday it was so good to have Jake and Scott out there working for free in my backyard and to be able to work with him. And as we were doing different things around the yard, it struck me how much I wish that my own dad could see us doing that together. Because that was something that I did with my dad growing up. We would work together all the time, and it just filled me with this feeling that he would be so proud, so excited to see that. As we were doing stuff, I have this full range of emotions, and I couldn't help think how different this year is than where we were last year. But for my own family, a year has made an amazing difference in just our state of mind. And I've been thinking for the last several weeks about the whole concept of fatherhood and what it means to be a father. And that's different than being a participant and bringing a child into the world. Any animal can do that. And yet today, sadly, in our country, that's about the sum total of the contribution of most fathers, that we're in a time when there are more children being raised without their biological father in their home than at any time in the history of mankind. And the effects and the impact that's having are unbelievable. They are beyond our ability to even comprehend. Right now they're estimating that 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. 90% of all homeless and runaway children come from fatherless homes. 85% of all children that exhibit any kind of behavioral disorder come from fatherless homes. 80% of rapists motivated by down-displaced anger come from homes where the father is absent. 71% of all high school dropouts come from homes where the father is absent. 75% of all adolescent patients and chemical abuse centers come from homes where the father is absent. 85% of all youth sitting in prison today come from homes where the father is absent. Literally, they studied a group of children that have been sexually abused. And out of their pool of sexually abused children, they found that 69% of all those children who have been sexually abused come from homes where the father is not present. Of the 31% that don't come from a home where the father is not present, 27% of the sexual abused victims come from a home where there's a stepfather. So 97% of all sexual abuse victims come from a home where their biological father is not with them. I don't know if that hits you. It is staggering. I found so many statistics just like this that it was just incredibly convicting and sobering. But then I thought about in the church because in some ways we see ourselves as a being above that in an insular environment. And yet within the churches today, less than 30% of our children are growing up to share a common conviction with us about God being God. That's terrifying to me. It's challenging to me as a father and it tells me that we have better wake up and if we don't get serious, if we don't see them riding on the wall and do something as fathers to change how we are impacting our own families, then we are living in a truly and completely hopeless and lost world. So I'm grateful to be a father but I'm sobered to see how important that role really is. The title of my lesson today is the parable of the lost son, the road to redemption through the path of pain. Clearly on in God's relationship with his people as he had led them out of Egypt, God put it on Moses' heart to communicate the importance of us remembering him and recognizing that a dynamic relationship, not just an acknowledgement of his existence because Satan does that, but to really have a relationship with God that affects the way we choose to live is absolutely crucial to the peace and happiness of his people in Deuteronomy chapter 8, verses 1 through 20, God lays that, the importance that as the Israelites are coming into the promised land as they have everything laid out in front of them, all the hope and all the promise that God wanted them to have, that the one thing that was most important was for them to not forget that every good thing they have, they have because of God. Tonight some have become so humanistic and worldly and self important that we start believing that somehow we've attained these things because of who we are and how amazing we are, but God reiterates over and over and over that it's important for us to remember God, to observe his commandments not because he wants to be the boss, but because if we trust him, if we believe in him it will produce a life that continues to give life, but when we pull away from that faith in him, when we stop trusting in him like the world does, like so many in our country do, this nation was founded on the principles of in God we trust, but we have moved so far away from that, that there's very little even time spent thinking about God or talking about that, letting along, trying to help our children understand their need for God. In Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 10 he says, "When you have eaten and are satisfied praise your God for the good land is given you, be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God." Why? Because if you do it will become for you a disaster that is you and I stop on wing God, stop glorifying God, stop teaching our children about God. The ultimate effect of that will be disastrous and we are living it out in our society today in Deuteronomy chapter 11, along with the same spirit and thought in verse 16, he says, "Be careful or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other guys and it is so easy for us to put our confidence in our jobs or in our professions or in our possessions in anything but in God and in times of trouble instead of turning to God we think if we work on her we buckle down and we do something on her own then it will be okay and yet what God wants is us to see no, that only in him do we have a, only in him do we have promise, only in God do we have the power to change our futures. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds, tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your forehead, teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up that our children should be hearing from us all the time about how amazing God is. Better is one day. Better is one day in the house of the Lord than a thousand elsewhere. Turn if you went to chapter 15 we are going to do something very different today. We are going to be going through the parable of the lost son but I want to do it from a little different perspective. This is really for me the parable of my family. It is my parable. It's a parable of my two sons and I ask Jake and Scott to join me today in sharing from this parable because I want to look at it from the perspective of a father of an older brother and a younger son to help us understand in the context of the parable how much God is trying to communicate to us how important it is for us to believe in Him and to trust in Him. In verse 11 of Luke 15 Jesus continued there was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, "Father, give me my share of the estate. Let me have what I think is mine." So he divided his property among them. Not long after that the younger son got together all that he had set up for a distant country and they were squandered as well in while living. After he spent everything there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country and sent him to his field to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything when he came to his senses. He said, "How many of my father's hired me have food to spare and here I am, starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say, "Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called to your son. Make me like one of your hired men." So he got out and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off his father's son and was filled with compassion for him, he ran to his senses. His arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, "Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called to your son." But the father said to the servants, "Quick, bring the best drive and put a ring on his fingers, sandals on his feet, bring the fatted calf and kill him. Let's have a feast and celebrate!" For this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile the older son was in the field. When he came near the house he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. "Your brothers come," he replied, "and your father's killed the fatted calf because he has him back safe and sound. The older brother became angry and refused to go in." So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, "Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat." So I could celebrate with my friends. But with this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home. "You kill a fatted calf for him." My son the father said, "You are always with me and everything I have is yours." But we have to celebrate and be glad because your brother, this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. Growing up I believe although my parents were not spiritual people this parable could have been said about me. I believe it probably could have been said about each and every one of us out there. Then at some point we felt very entitled and expected our parents to give us things and took them for granted and ended up squandering even the blessings that we have on selfish living. But there is something inherent in us that when we get to the bottom and there is nowhere else to go where do we look? We look for home. But I think in the past 24 years God has given me an opportunity to see it from a different perspective from that of a father. To have the initial joy of watching your children grow up to see both my sons, study the Bible, become Christians and then to watch both of them struggle and to feel the absolute frustration and fear and helplessness that I felt so many times over and over again. And then to realize that although God has all power in order for God to allow you free choice he had to be willing to watch his own son suffer. He has to be willing to watch you and me suffer every single day. The desire to try to control their decisions and to make them into Christians is incredibly strong and incredibly useless because God has given them the right to choose. And over the past several years as Libby got sick and we were faced with some very difficult circumstances I watched my family literally before my eyes appear to be dying and I felt absolutely helpless to do much to stop it. And it wasn't just me that suffered during that time. It was all of us. So this weekend when we were working I was thinking about how different my life is today. I was thinking about how grateful I am for each one of you because so many of you have been there for us so many times in prayer and just talking and sharing that we wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for you and we wouldn't have you if it weren't for God. That God truly does set the lonely in homes to give us hope and a future. Like I asked Scott to come out and I want to give him a chance just to share from his perspective how this passage has come to life for him over the last couple of years. All right. You may have to bear with me. I think I got the short end of the stick in the public speaking arena in my family. With everything that happened like my dad talks about leading up to, there was kind of a lot involved with different people outside of our family as well leading up to when my mom got sick. A lot of people were really close to me too. I felt like as hard as it was sometimes I had really battled through trying to stay faithful and believing in the surface that God works good for those who love him and that somehow whether it was people that were dying or difficult things that were happening that somehow God was going to take care of it. But I think when my mom got sick it was a lot different and it was a lot more difficult for me to trust God with her the way that I did with those other people. Because I mean I had grown up and if God was who I thought he was, then it didn't make sense to me that he was going to let my mom suffer like this after everything that had just happened fairly recently as well. And then on top of that just what he did to our family and then what my choices after that did. But I felt like I was trying to force myself to keep believing that God was in control but in the background all these thoughts and doubts and questions just confused about what I had been raised believing. I kept stuffed in and I let him fester and finally the night of my mom's surgery I snapped and in my mind God had stopped taking care of my family the way I thought that he needed to or that he was supposed to. And so I stopped carrying completely. And most of you know I think from just interactions the last time I spoke what came after that but briefly I mean I got, there was nothing holding me back really anymore and I got, I surrounded myself with people that wouldn't ask anything of me, wouldn't question me, wouldn't ask me about how I was feeling or thinking or really care about me in any way and that's how I wanted it and that's how I liked it because I couldn't stand thinking about what was in my head and in my heart and coincidentally most of those people I didn't ask anything of me were quite fond of marijuana and without much holding me back I got into smoking and moral was all sorts of mess and sin that I got into but mainly it was, I smoked a lot and I got into some other drugs and just spent two years or two and a half years just beating on my family as they watched me go through that and sorry because of the people I was involved with and what I was doing I was putting myself in danger all the time which is in my mind if I was secretive and I knew leaving would hurt but I figured it would be like feeling a band-aid that it would hurt and as long as nobody knew what I was doing or what was happening with me that it wasn't going to be affecting anybody else by myself but because of the things I was getting into I was in constant danger both of my life and with the police whether it was drunk driving or being in the wrong place at the wrong time or whatever it was I had gone from thinking about even loop 15 eating comfortably in my parents home most nights and happily to eating Jack in the box tacos at like tune in the morning because I felt bad being around them and that's about as close to pig pods as I can think of but so through all that I was obviously accumulating a lot of guilt and self-hatred and I was literally just choosing to kill myself with my choices very quickly and full view of the people who loved me the most and had poured so much of their lives into me and the very person the very person that meant meant enough for me to leave God because he was letting her hurt I was hurting on a daily basis and she was crying regularly just in fear that I wasn't gonna come home and I couldn't do it anymore but Satan wasn't about to let me go that easy obviously never does and I started actually praying again and reading and just in the hopes initially I didn't think I could come back but just wanted my family did not hurt anymore and ended up getting restored but some of that scene was a lot more to deal with than I thought it was gonna be and I showed openness in the past and just little by little through mistakes I just let it creep back in and ended up relapsing and I went to rehab about last summer about a year ago and we had the last week of rehab we had a family week and my parents again showing their support in love for me flew all the way out both them and my parents to Montana to be there just for a week and it was really there that I got to see kind of the full gravity of the effect that my son had been having because I could obviously see some of the stuff that I was able to see with my own eyes but the stuff that I thought nobody knew about and that I thought couldn't possibly had an effect on anybody the entire time was doing the very same because even in that I found out that not knowing was what was probably hurting them the most was what was going on with me because they love me and they want to make sure I'm okay and they knew I was making some four decisions but yeah at family week and rehab they had each one of my family members write me a letter and then had me write a letter to each one of them and I wanted to read the letter I wrote to my dad because through all this my dad had not only been dealing with how much I was hurting him with my own decisions but he was watching kind of helplessly like he said because everything he said and everything he did to try to help I resisted but he was watching as I he was the one that I actually got to see the tears that my mom was crying almost every night and somehow still didn't take me out but yeah I'm just going to read the letter dad fairly obviously you're the most important man in my life you've taught me almost everything I know about how to be a man of God you know just as well if not more that that doesn't mean you've been perfect or haven't made mistakes like I said to Jake though the fact that you aren't perfect is exponentially more helpful to me I've seen you battle do with right through situations I know I'd crumble in I look up to you more than anyone else in the world and can only pray by the time on your age I can be as strong as you I know my behavior in the last years since I've been using has been particularly hard on you because I believe it went against everything in your nature to nail it the way you have I know I've been incredibly selfish stubborn and prideful and I think if you would have handled me the way you wanted to I would have responded the correction that much worse for that I thank you with all my heart because I know it was super hard to deal with me during this time I hope you never question if you could have done something different because because my sin was my own and my own and I don't believe there was anything you or anyone else could have done my behavior is directly due to my own poor choices my distance from God and depression it cause I remember sitting on your bed debating how it felt about my relationship with God and questioning my faith and I knew a crush you to watch it unfold the way it did my heart aches when I think about all the pain this has caused you all the broken promises all the angry outbursts all the arguments all the yelling in the fights all the lying and sneaking around you knew I was doing and my unwillingness to change I disrespected our family I disrespected our house and more than anything I disrespected you as the head of our house I'm so thankful for how much you fought for me and never stop believing in me you taught me how to fight and never give up and show me what it is to forgive I wouldn't be who I am now or be able to make it through this if it weren't for you being the man of God that you are and teaching me how to follow God I love you more than I can ever express and I will fight to the death to regain your trust and show you that this is all worth it thank you you know throughout throughout the time that my dad and my brother been talking about I got to read this passage many times and what was interesting to me is as I've read through this parable as you see the older son is mentioned at the beginning as being one of the sons but he's really not present throughout the parable until the end and when he comes into play it so that he was out in the field working and as I looked at that and I thought even about what this what was going on in our family at this time the suffering that my mom was going through physically and the doctor's visits and the fear there seeing my brother make the choices that he was making and I think seeing my dad battle with knowing how to keep the family together and how to be there for my brother how to be there for my mom and they just overall feeling helpless it was it was a very it was a very weird time for me because I didn't know where I fit in with all that and the only thing that I knew the only thing that I wanted to do is I wanted to try and be the steady older brother I wanted to just work as normal and not cause any waves just do the best I could to be reliable and as a result I think I I did not allow myself to deal with the pain and the fear that I was feeling and I ended up directing a lot of that pain and the fear about what was going to happen to my mom about what I saw with my dad and the fear I felt towards my brother and I directed a lot of that pain and frustration to him throughout that time I battled with resentment I wanted wanting to blame my brother for the pain and the pain and having a hard time reconciling his choices with the pain that he was also feeling and even around the time that he started making some changes and started really wanting to get help I battled with trust and fear and not wanting to forgive him and I read this passage probably dozens of times I learned I think hate the older brother in the passage because I saw him as self righteous, arrogant unwilling to forgive unwilling to love and it scared me because I realized that was what I was becoming that I pointed the fingers at my brother but I was unwilling to see my own self righteousness and how much God had spared me and I battled a lot to not just let myself point the attention to my brother but also recognizing that at the end of the parable when the father went running towards his son I knew that that's what I wanted for my little brother and I was afraid that I was going to be the older brother standing back with resentment wondering why he wasn't given more praise for being the steady older brother and then God really worked in my heart during that time to help me to realize that I wanted to be another set of open arms for my brother that I wanted to be able to be there to be somebody that he felt he could trust and somebody that believed in him not somebody that was angry for the choices that he made and I think also during that time God really helped us off my heart to recognizing that as my dad said is that I've been the younger son that I've made choices to walk away from God and many people have been in my life my parents so many people in this room have been a set of open arms to help me to get back to God and just as much so that I was going to be that for my brother and I'm so grateful now that even I can I can stand here be with my dad and my brother knowing that God has spared us from so much have been so gracious towards us and I don't want in any way for this to make seem like it was my brother that was causing the issues in any way shape or form because I realize that my sin had been damaging my family just as much but I'm so grateful that God has been in open arms for all of us and that we can be able to be the family that we are today. You may ask why we have chosen to do this on the day that's meant to celebrate fathers and the reason that we've chosen to do it is there's multi-fasts to it but number one is that we see the grace that has been poured out to us grace has been poured out to us by you but most importantly the grace has been poured out to us by God and we know that we wouldn't be where we are and we're not done we've got battles every day but I believe that what we do have we have by God's grace and by God's mercy and God's strength but another reason that we wanted to do this is we see the state of families and have dysfunctional they are in this world and tragically how dysfunctional they are even in the church and I really want us to be able to celebrate today but let's celebrate it in a way that's meaningful and not a way that's meaningless and fathers I want to plead with you and encourage you and beg you and challenge you it is time for us to stand up and to be men of God not men who have no center or without fault but men who will turn to God and rely on God and teach our families about God because this world does not have the answers politics will never solve the problems economics means absolutely nothing your profession your education none of those make a difference what makes the difference is if a father's present and that father trusts in the Lord from the very beginning God has tried to communicate the depth of his love for us and there's a part of us that we're so afraid of acknowledging where we really are that we hide in dark places instead of just getting open and just getting honest and letting people see the good the bad and the ugly so that we can stand together and stand for God and our children will have a hope that they will never have in the world in Proverbs chapter 3 verse 1 he says my son do not forget my teaching but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity let love and faithfulness never leave you buying them around your neck write them on the tablet of your heart then you will in favor in a good name in the sight of God and man trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean that on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight do not be wise in your own eyes fear the Lord and shun evil this will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones honor the Lord with your wealth win with the first fruits of all your crops then your bones will be filled over play and your vats will brim over with new one my son do not despise the Lord's discipline do not resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a father the son he delights in and his first sermon in Matthew chapter 7 and verses 9-11 Jesus said that if we though we are evil know how to give good gifts to our children don't we believe God knows how to give good gifts to us Hebrews 12 at a time when the church was struggling and families were tearing each other apart verse 4 the writer says in your struggle against sin you've not yet resisted the point of shedding your blood and you've forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you the son my son do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart I think for me maybe one of the things I've struggled with the most is just losing heart and giving up but our children cannot afford for us to quit they need for us to suck it up and stand up and look up and set them an example because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he is a faithful God and he always disciplines us for our good because he loves us at the end of his life as he was dying and he knew he was dying Joshua called all of his brothers and sisters together and Joshua chapter 24 verse 14 he said no fear the Lord and serve him with faithfulness throw away the God your forefather's worship beyond the river in Egypt and serve the Lord but if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you then choose for yourself God's given us the right to choose choose who you will serve whether the God your forefather served beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites and whose land you're living but as for me and my household we will serve the Lord. [Applause] [Applause] [BLANK_AUDIO]
The Rock family share their life and struggles and how it was like the parable of the lost son.