June 12, 2011
The Journey Home: Part 2 — The Hardest Lesson Lost
Luke 15:11-32

Sunday Morning: Daybreak & Refresh

Core Ideas:

• Key introduction piece to each lesson:

The focus is on our long journey to find home. This basic beginning point:

• Being back in Abilene, there are places I go and people I see that remind me of when I was a little boy. Even more, there is the favorite house we lived in growing up out off the East Lake road. Down below the bluff, there is a 27 acre stock tank where I spent time fishing, catching snakes, exploring, and doing dumb crazy stuff boys do. I can go back there any time. But it is not the same. Realized the first time I went back in college and somebody had cut the trees down! Trees I had used a Texas toothpick and busted rock to get in the ground! People are changed. Someone else's horses. Except for Leon and Iris Reese, everybody was different.
• That place has a lot of memories, but it isn't home. It's clearly not the ol' Joni Mitchell tune, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot!" but it isn't home and hasn't been in a long time. It makes a little bit sad even thinking about it.
• There is a deep longing, an ache to go home, to find home, to experience home — to go to that illusive place some know, many missed and all of us long for. But when I went home from college at Christmas my freshman year, I had to drive 55 miles an hour to El Paso, a town I had never visited. That was supposed to be home. I had to have directions. My dad was sick. I didn't know anybody.
• So there I was, driving forever to a place called home that I had never been to ... and the place I remembered as home was gone ... and the place I had gone to high school wasn't home ... and when I arrived 9 hours later, the door I entered opened to a house full of unpacked boxes and a family asleep and a man who felt like a little boy lost in the mall, wanting to go home.

• We sometimes call this the parable of the prodigal son, but Jesus doesn't call it that. Look at verse 11. Jesus titles it this: "A Man Who Had Two Sons."
  1. Two sons
  2. Two groups — see 14:33-15:2
• We focus on the younger son! But the story wasn't told for the "younger sons" to hear, they were already drawing near!
  1. Told for the older sons, the religious ones, the ones like you and me!
  2. The invitation remains open and unanswered at the end of the story, a thunderclap after the other parables.
  3. The offense of the older son was worse, the father had already given him everything! And the humiliation and yet love of the father was greater for the older son — he waiting and looked for the younger son to return, but like in the other parables, the Father went out looking for the older sonGod is concerned for the lost children at home, the ones who live in a far away country because they are bored, or angry, or feel entitled, or feel superior or more righteous, but who are just as lost as the younger son.
  4. You see, the older son was just like his younger brother. He didn't love the father, he just wanted the father for what he could get from him. His disguise was different, religious instead of rebellious, but he wanted the father on his own terms, without the rules changed, so he could get what he wanted from the father. But he wasn't in it to enjoy the presence of the father, he just wanted the presents he could get from the father.

Key Focus:

• The two brothers illustrate two different ways we can be alienated from God: rebels and religious, self-proclaimed sinners and saints, hell-raisers and holy rollers
• Interestingly enough, the older son already had gotten his inheritance — vs. 12!
• This is the open-ended parable of Luke 15
1. Looking for the lost
2. Inviting the son in to the party
3. But son can't be found unless he realizes the gift of the father
4. So there is no joy at the end of this parable, just the open invitation to come in to the party!
• This is where God leaves it with us. To give up the American brand of Christianity that infects us — I'll do this and you bless me! — for the authentic invitation to God's party, God's welcome, our Father's house! Because we recognize it is better in our father's house as a son, a child, than it is to be paid for what we are worth as a worker anywhere else because God doesn't pay or reward based on our merits, but on his love, mercy, and grace! (Notice the interplay between hired servants, slaving, slaves, and sons!)

SH!FT Elements:

• LIVE_holy — not self-righteously, but appreciately because of the grace we have received
• GIVE_sacrifically — which includes for-GIVE!

Key SoHills Emphasis:

• Mission Trips
• VBS
• Wednesday Program

Key Scriptures:

• 1 John 4:7-12 suggested for use in Scripture reading
• 1 Timothy 4:4; 6:17 for use in sermon
• Romans 5:6-11 suggested for use in communion

Drama, Media, & Connecting Pieces:

• Pre-video:
• Video or Drama Piece: Does it Matter — something that focuses on ....

Sunday Evening: Sundown

• Title: Heaven in Your Home Eph. 5:15-33

• Speaker: Steve Ridgell

• Prayer & Eph. 5:15-33: Tom South

• Communion Devotional: Richard Melton

• Song Leader: Jason Fry

• Closing Shared Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7