I'm curious, are there any first time dads in the room? Is it Paul, Is this your first Father's Day? Come on, guys. Happy Father's Day, man. It's awesome.

But don't get cut because like, I just, I mean, there are, there are dads and granddads and great granddads in the room. And man, let's just let them all know how much we appreciate them and the things that they do and the lives that they live, you know? And even when I say that, it's like as I've gotten older, I'm learning just how bittersweet holidays can be. Because some of you in this room, this is your first Father's Day without your dad. Or maybe you grew up without your dad.

Or maybe you grew up with a dad that didn't really model what a real dad should have been. Can I tell you something? If we could find the best dad on the face of this planet and hold it, put him right here and go, this is the model dad right here. Our Heavenly Father is so much greater than that. And that's the dad that I want you to know.

Like, I mean, a lot of us are tempted and it really is psychological that we will see God as we saw our dad. And if our dad was condemning, if our dad was shaming, if our dad was abusive, then it's easy for us to, to think God is that way. But he's not. Our God is good. Our heavenly Father is perfect and holy and righteous and grace filled and awesome.

And that's the dad that I want you to know. And so with that in mind, I want you to turn To Luke, Chapter 15, one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to talk to dad. Dad, I'm going to talk to you today. And I might step on your toes a little bit, but that's okay.

And here's why. A few weeks ago, when we celebrated Mother's Day, I talked about how the nurture of a mother is so vital to provide security for children as they grow. It's vital, but sometimes what is a gift can become a curse. There's some research to show that when the dad is absent, whether mentally or physically, what ends up happening is there's not a compliment to the nurture that encourages the development of independence in a child's life. In fact, this article that I discovered started out by talking about how that when the father is absent, and what we're beginning to see in culture today is that today's 18 year olds have the mentality of yesterday's 14 year old.

That one didn't fly over well, because some of you are 18 and if you're 14, that means you have the mentality, I guess, of a nine year old. But they've been showing for years how. Brain research shows that a male, a 26 year old male, has the brain development of, of the World War II 18 year old. And because I believe one of the reasons is that the dads have been absent for far too long from the home. So dads, let me just go ahead and just do it.

Dads, you need to be engaged at home. When you come home and your wife's in there wrangling three or four kids and they're screaming their heads off, you don't go to your shop and tinker with your lawnmower. You need to be in there holding her hand and doing it with her. It's not the, well, I'll take care of the outside stuff, you take care of the inside stuff. Dad, you need to be engaged.

Why? Listen to this research based on observations of mothers and fathers. Different psychological dispositions and behaviors in parenting have consistently found that both mothers and fathers influence multiple aspects of a child's development. But they do so through different processes. A mother can't be both the mother and the father, and the father can't be both the mother and the father.

It takes both the mother and the father. We could go down another rabbit trail, but I've already made in my notes, don't follow any rabbit trails today.

That's right. Joe says these studies show that fathers tend to be particularly attuned to the development of a child's physical, emotional and intellectual independence. Say, independence in everything from children making their own lunches to tying their shoes to doing chores and making decisions for themselves after they have left home. One of the reasons kids aren't leaving home today is because the dads were not there physically or mentally.

And we have to do this together. The greatest gift, husbands and wives, you can give to your kids is your relationship.

And when you are on the same page and when you are in unison, and if you are not, you already know. Our church believes we're a place of hope. And we believe that emotional health is a part of the process of discipleship. If you are not on the same page, get help. Get help.

And if you say, well, my husband's too cool to go to counseling, stop it. Just stop it. That's a lie from the pit of hell. Everybody needs somebody who can speak truth into their life. So stop thinking, well, I'm too manly to go to counseling.

Come on, come on. You too manly? You gonna throw your family away because you're too manly? I told you it was gonna be a little tough. Cause listen to what it does.

Listen to what they found from this. It said when this development is missing. There's a couple of milestones they looked at now. Similarly, Those back about 40 years ago, by the time they left home. Back then, 73% of these children had jobs compared today to 66%.

So not too far off. Financial independence back in the 1980s, 63% versus 60% today. But listen to this. Today, this age group that are 25 and under lag behind previous generations on milestones relating to family marriage. In the 1980s, 25 year olds, 63% were married compared to 22% today.

1. Because cohabitation has become a common practice.

Can I meddle today I've got jet lag.

60 something percent to 70% of marriages that cohabit before they get married end in divorce. So if you're doing it or you're thinking of doing it, don't. Because if you think I'm gonna try the goods before I get married, it don't work that way. You make the commitment for life and then comes the goods. I didn't get any amens on that one.

Well, let me just keep going then. 39% back then stepped into parenthood. Ready? And today that percentage is 17%. Dad, you make a difference.

When I was. Listen to this. You model. You model hard work. You model staying up late at night to fix the leak in the sink.

You teach them how to tie the knot on the fishing hook. You wrestle with them Even if you're 50 year old and you bruise easily.

Or as our Mexico team found out last week, he can still jump in my arms and hold him.

You come home and two little girls come and pull at your pants strings. How many of you dads ever played pretty, pretty princess earrings and all right, Jim. And you'll sit in that floor and you'll let them clip those earrings on you and put that necklace on you and spin the dial.

I was going through the airport and I thought to myself, God, miss, I watched this lady pushing her baby in a stroller. And I thought, oh, oh, I miss those days. And I wish I could go back and capitalize on it even more. Aren't we all about looking in the rearview mirror sometimes? Well, don't look in the rearview mirror.

Do it now. Dads Be engaged. You know why you need to be engaged? Because we have a heavenly father who's engaged with us. We have a father in heaven who wants us to come home.

You see, in this world, we have so many divisions. Have you turned the news on this week? Our world is so, so polarized and divided, and families sometimes are polarized. And you know why? Because dads remove themselves from the conflict and don't step in and lead as the patriarch who can lead to a place of restoration, we are, we should be a model of our heavenly Father, even though we'll never obtain to the perfection in this world.

I like he has, but he's calling us in holiness and righteousness to be the kind of godly dads that our families need. Just like the dad in the story of the prodigal son. You see, the kingdom has come. The kingdom came when Jesus came. His first words were, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

The kingdom has come. And God wanted his subjects to come home. This religious system that existed with the Pharisees and the Sadducees that developed in the intertestamental history period. Y' all know you ever heard that word before? New word for you right here.

Intertestamental period. The closing of the Old Testament and about three or four hundred years later, till the time of Christ. And the Pharisees came up in a way to try to return Israel back to the purity of the law. But then they started adding all oral traditions to it. But then they got away from the heart of the law, which was to bring the lost home.

The law in the temple was supposed to represent the place that people could come, that the nations would call it a house of prayer. And they began to ostracize. They began to reject God's people, the tax collectors and the sinners and all of those that they deemed unclean. They wouldn't go into their houses. They wouldn't interact with them because they didn't want to be unclean.

They were worried about what people thought more than what God thought. And they missed the heart of God and dads in your family. I'm afraid oftentimes we've missed the heart of God because we haven't displayed the heart of God in bringing the lost home.

What we do is, something happens, there's a fallout, and we tell those family members or our friends, like, okay, you got to do these 10 things before I can bring you back into relationship with me. Can I ask you a question? Does that in any way model the gospel? Does God say All right, well, I'll save you, but you got to do these nine things before you can come back to me. Come on, somebody tell me yes or no.

Does God do that? No. God says, come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and what. I will give you rest. There's no conditions to the gospel.

It's by faith alone. Today we're standing here and the kingdom has come. And it's come through his son that we might have a relationship with the Father. So before I ramble anymore, will you stand with me as we read the last verse of the fifteenth chapter of the book of Luke? And then I'm going to back up, we're going to talk through it a little bit.

Because my point today is this, as we kick off this new series on the Kingdom is the kingdom has come and it has implications to our life. And today it means that the kingdom has come to restore those that have been lost. At the end of this chapter, it says, but we had to celebrate. We had to celebrate. Had to.

There was no other thing we couldn't do but celebrate. Sometimes you got to have a shout in your voice and a hand clap that just erupts inside of you. Why? He said, because this brother of yours who was dead has become alive. He was lost and now he has been found.

Does that light your fire to know. Does it light your fire to know that there's somebody, even your worst enemy, that has chosen to repent of their sin and come to Jesus Christ that should erupt inside of you? Hallelujah.

We had to celebrate. Why? We're going to find out, Father, as we dig into your word today, Lord, give us a reason to celebrate that your kingdom has come in Jesus name. Amen. Gosh, I don't even know where to begin.

Let's begin in verse number one. How's that sound? Y' all back up with me at the beginning of this chapter. And I'm gonna walk through. And as I walk through, I'm gonna give you.

Give you some points that lead up to this idea that the kingdom has come. This is so simple. This is so simple. If you're here visiting your dad today, I hope, I hope this means something to you, especially when we get to the application. You can be the glue that can bring your family back together.

You can be the glue that keeps your family together. But you've got to be engaged in verse number one. It says now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near him to listen. Who's him? That's Jesus.

Jesus is the him. And they were coming because Jesus came and he took that religious system that, that they had been practicing and he literally flipped it upside down. Everything was backwards. These men thought that because they had kept the law within their mind, perfection, that they had kept all their stuff clean and they had followed all the rules, that they somehow had a one up with God that, hey, look, we're right here. Here's God and here's us.

But they had started this thing where like, well, there's everybody else, oh, I can't go around you because I might catch your sin.

Had a family member who got pregnant out of wedlock. And I remember watching the church ostracize her.

Let me just be honest. Here's somebody who sinned, became pregnant. That baby was not a mistake.

The sin might have been a mistake, but that baby's not a mistake. Y' all hearing me clear? And people wouldn't sit around her, they wouldn't talk to her. And she left church. When I knew that 99% of the men in that room had lusted in their own heart.

And the Bible said they had committed adultery, but they were judging that one young woman for a mistake, a sin. Are y' all following me? We can't catch the sin of other people. And the Pharisees weren't going to get unclean but by sitting next to a sinner. So they say in verse number two.

Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners? It blew their mind.

They thought in their system. No, no, no, no, no, Jesus, if you really came from God, you'd be following our rules, you'd be following our ways. But instead you're going out here to these people who don't matter. See, they miss the heart of God. The kingdom came so that it would bring the lost sheep back home.

And that's what they missed. Even though they said we are perfect in the law. Maybe they could check off every box. But their hearts were dark and evil and they missed that God wanted his sheep to come home. I mean, look at this.

There's a pattern. There's three parables in this chapter. And the first two establish a pattern that projects into the third parable that gives us some things we can learn. He starts with this story of the lost sheep. I got to catch up in my text.

I mean, my outline. I mean, I wrote this while I was in Mexico, alright? I said the word Mexico. I'm done. I said, don't talk about Mexico.

Point number one, the kingdom has come to confront our condition of sin. The kingdom has Come to confront our condition of sin. Watch what happens. These parables are so beautiful. He said, what man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and one of them is lost, doesn't go to find the 1 and leave the 99?

So he tells the story of a man who does this. And he says, when he finds it, he puts it on his shoulder. But watch what happens. He rejoices. I found my sheep.

You would think to yourself, if you had a hundred dollars and you lost $1, would it bother you?

Would it bother you to lose a dollar? Well, no, because a dollar in our culture right now isn't worth that much. But this one sheep was worth a lot to him. It was worth a lot to him. To him, it was worth a lot.

And so he goes, he finds it. He rejoices. He throws it on his shoulder. And here's where it gets weird. It's like he's walking into town.

He's got this sheep on his shoulder. He goes, hey, everybody, look. I found my sheep. I found my sheep. And they're going like, well, okay.

He's inviting them to rejoice. And the Bible says. He said, I'm telling you, in heaven, there's rejoicing over one sinner who repents. All of heaven rejoices over one sinner repenting. Out of millions of people on the face of this planet, one sinner.

Okay, well, he tells another story. Well, there's a woman who had 10 coins, silver coins, and she loses a coin. Nobody's there to watch the coin get lost. Nobody heard it go, Tink. Wherever it went, it doesn't tell us where she found it.

It just says, she scoured her house and she found it. Now here you are, you're in the street and you're talking to your buddies. All of a sudden, this crazy, crazy woman runs out, says, hey, guys, look, I found my coin.

Everybody looking at her like, oh, okay, you found your coin. I mean, okay, that's fine. That's good.

Then again, he says, I tell you, they rejoice in the presence of God over how many? One sinner repenting. So they don't get it. You know why? Because they had no concept how deep their sin struggle was.

Even in those who we would deem perfect. Even in those who kept all the rules, they had no idea of their condition of sin. And we're no different. Because then he changes the story. He goes from 100 sheep to 10 coins to two sons.

Pick up with me in verse, verse number 11. And he said, A man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate. That falls to me. So he divided his wealth among them.

And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey in a distant country. And there he squandered his estate with loose living. Let me ask you a question. Did the brother know. Did this son know where he was?

He did. He knew exactly where he was. But what was his sin? What was his sin?

I want to argue a point here. It says he went and he used that money to live loosely. I want to argue the greater sin was that he took the things God had given him and squandered them.

Puts it in a little different perspective, doesn't it? You know what? There's a lot of people today, even in this room today, who are still living in the desert, squandering the goods that God has given them because they love sin more than the Father. Are you with me? Telling you this is hard, but it's good because it's liberating.

It's helping us understand that my condition of sin and your condition of sin. The kingdom has come to call us, to confront the sin that is in our life. That's what the word repent means. It's already been mentioned twice in this text. It literally means, as Jeff Bromilly says, to regret and change one's attitude.

Like I've been guilty of saying that repentance is stopping the sin. But it's more than that. You've got to change your mindset. You got to change your mind. As you change your mind, you change your behavior.

To repent means that you take and you begin to think like the Father thinks. And in that case, the tax collector, the sinner, and the Pharisees were all guilty. They were all guilty of sin. They were all guilty of falling short. They were all guilty of being separated.

But Jesus, in his grace, his mercy and his love, had come and said, come freely. Come freely how? Through me? He said, come through me. His very first words in John's ministry.

John even said to him, he has come to turn many back to the kingdom. What about you today? Like, how are you walking? How are you walking with Christ? Are you.

Are you. Have you left? And what we're going to see in a few minutes, as he does repent, he leaves that land and comes home.

How much do you love sin in your life?

Are you combating the sin in your life? Or you're like, you know what? No one knows I'm doing this It's a little bit, okay. But it comes with a price. And you know the price.

It separates you from God. And if you're lost, Lost. The word. We use the word lost a lot, right? In church, people are like, what does that mean?

Lost means I have chosen to remain separated from God because I want my sin more than I want to be restored. For you and me today, the call is, the kingdom has come to confront us in our situation. Think about this. In Hebrews 11:25 through 26, talking about Moses, the writer said, he chose to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin.

And that son squandered everything he had. And then all of a sudden, verse 14, a severe famine comes. So he went and he hired himself out as one of the citizens of that country to one of the citizens of that country and sent him out in the fields to feed swine. You see, to a Pharisee, that was the epitome of disgusting. Because they didn't touch pigs, man, they missed out on all that bacon.

We were talking to some little kids this week, and they were talking about having pet pigs. And I said, well, if I have a pet pig, I'm naming him Bacon because he gonna die now. I'm gonna eat him. But it says he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, but no one was giving him anything. In my granny's house, there was a bucket next to her stove.

And you know what went in that bucket? Nasty stuff. What did you call it? Slop. How many of you got the joy of slopping a pig?

Granny would say, take that bucket out and slop the pigs. So you took that bucket of stuff. Like, if you're trimming chicken, that's where that fat went. And if you had any little green beans left, that's where that went. Oh, it was nasty.

This man was so depraved, that's what he wanted to eat. He was so starved for nourishment and so separated from the father outside of his engagement, outside of his security, outside of his covering, outside of his blessing, that he was willing to chew what was left on the corn husk. It's about time to cream some corn. I don't know if you cream. I love creamed corn.

I cream my corn. I can tell you. I get every piece of juice off that, off that cob. And when it's left, there's not much left there, but you might could lick it and get a little taste. There's no nourishment, guys.

There's no nourishment for your soul in sin. And until you confront your condition of sin, if you're struggling in your walk with Jesus, the first question you need to ask is, am I forsaking sin? Because what repentance does is this. And this is what we learn from this young man. He says this when he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father Father's hired men have enough bread to eat?

But here I am, dying with hunger. I will get up and go to my Father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. Second point is this solution.

The kingdom has come to expose our misconception of sin. Because here's what's happened. You're in this room today, and I bet some of you think this, well, you know what? I'll come to Jesus when I get all of my stuff cleaned up. When I start living better, I'll come to Jesus.

You know, I'm going to try harder tomorrow, and I'll get 10 things done in the name of Jesus. But then you get up the next day and you fall right back into some of your old practices. You know why? Because you need to come to the Father and let him clean you up. You can't do it.

You don't have the power. You don't have the power. You don't have the know how. You can't do it. He's saying, come just as you are, warts and all.

Any of you ever tried to get rid of your own warts Years ago? This is disgusting. We're talking about pig slop. And I'm going to tell you a really horrible story.

Somehow I got a wart on the bottom of my foot about, I don't know, Maybe it's about 10 or 15 years ago. And every time it didn't express itself like a regular wart. Every time I'd step on it, I felt like there was a pin sticking in my foot. So I finally go to a podiatrist to look at it, and he said, oh, you've got a seed wart that's inverted into the callus of your foot. And I went, how does that happen?

He said, well, somebody probably, you know, was in your shower and had it. And I went, oh, yeah, the kids do.

And they had just started shaving their legs. I'm like, ah, okay, so what do I do? And he said, well, I Got this acid. And so he put acid on it.

Three times it took him. I mean, I went to a conference and I'm, you know, kind of doing this number right here. And I'm telling you, by the time it came out, it went that deep into my foot. Before that thing came out, I couldn't do. I could never get rid of that on my own.

And some of us, our sin is so deep, we think, well, I'm going to get myself cleaned up and pretty myself up enough. And if everybody else thinks I look good, then God must think I look good. God knows every thought you think and everything you've ever done. And the good news is he still loves you a lot. And we have to understand that our misconception of coming to God, we have to die to that.

We have to understand we can come to God freely because of his grace and his mercy. Look, I want you to write down four words from those three verses from 17 through 19. First one is this. Realize. Write down the word realize.

He came to his senses. Repentance is impossible until you get it up here.

Yes, it starts in your heart, but when you change your mind, when you're committed to saying, you know what, the way I'm thinking is not leading me to a way to behave the right way. I've got to change this up here. And guys, that takes a lot of work. Research has shown that your worldview is set by the time you're in high school. Your worldview is set.

If you're going to change your worldview, you got to work hard at it. Number two, write down the word move. The first thing you do is you realize. You come to your senses. You realize something's wrong.

But then the second one is, you move. Well, I might do that tomorrow. No, it's immediate. It's life or death. You move.

If you're in the water at the beach and there is a blob coming towards you, you move quickly. Amen. I like the ocean, but I don't like sharks. The third thing I want you to write down is the word say S A Y, say. He said, I have sinned.

He recognized his position. He recognized his sin. And the fourth word there is humble. Guys, this is the pathway to repentance. Realize, move, say, and humble.

He said, I'm not worthy. Now, I don't think we need to live in our Christianity going around saying, well, I'm just a worm. I'm the scum of the earth. No, you are a child of the King John. Chapter one is very clear.

That those who have believed have the right to be called the sons and daughters of God. You are positionally different. But until you leave this world, sin is always knocking at your door. That's why repentance is a discipline. It's a practice that we need to keep in our lives.

Over and over again, we realize, we move, we say, and we come humbly. But even in what he did, he said, I'll just come back and be one of my Father's servants. He didn't even understand the depth of his Father's love. But now let me ask you a question. The pattern was something gets lost.

They look for it, they find it. They. They bring it out, they call people to celebrate, and there's rejoicing, right? That's the pattern. The Father didn't go looking this time, but he was waiting to watch, to see if he came.

And here's the beautiful thing, like he gets up and he goes. And the third point here. Surrender. The kingdom has come to reveal the heart of the king. You see, if the Pharisees really knew the heart of God, they would have been right there with Jesus calling the tax collectors and.

And the sinners. But because they really didn't know God, all they knew was their religious structure, they didn't give one iota care about the people that were around them. They didn't care about the lost. They didn't care about those who were hopeless. And guys, Ebenezer's not that kind of church, is it?

We care about the lost. We care about the broken. We care about those who are separated from God. And we'll do whatever it takes to get them to come to the table. And if the Pharisees would have gotten it, oh man, what kind of revival would have broke out in Israel and today?

What kind of revival can break out in our church? Not because we come in here and sing a bunch of songs, but because we get the fire that we want to go find the lost. That's what revival births. You want to be revived, start praying for lost people, start looking for lost people, start inviting lost people. Because if that's what the Pharisees would have done, they would express the heart of God, and they wouldn't have been asking the question, why is Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners?

The kingdom's come to expose that misconception, but it's come to reveal the heart of our God, the Father, and our King. So he got up and he came to his father, and the Father was there waiting on him. Dads and moms when your child goes wayward, the last thing they need to hear is, I told you so.

Can I just let that hover for a minute? We won't see that in this text. Well, I told you, if you messed with that girl, this was going to happen. Well, yeah. Well, it happened.

Can your children have confidence that they can come home and be loved unconditionally? How many families could be restored right now if that attitude was in place? Listen to what he says. But when he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion for him, ran, embraced and kissed him.

Two things going on in this text culture. Number one, that father shamed himself getting off, that leaving his house. Fathers didn't run. That meant he had to pick up his garment and exposed his legs. So these Pharisees who followed the law, now you've got pigs going on in the store and you got a dad pulling up his coat.

Here's the second thing going on in that culture. A rebellious child. You know what was supposed to happen to him? According to the book of Deuteronomy, he was supposed to be stoned at the gate. The dad ran to protect his son.

He sinned against his father. But if the father followed the law the way the Pharisees followed the law, he should have been killed at the gate as soon as he stepped up. But that's not what happened. And so the son says, father, I sinned against you in heaven. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

And he never got to the part where he said, can I be a servant? Did you see that? That was his plan, right? But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fatted calf, kill it and let us eat and celebrate.

For this son of mine was dead and has come to life. He was lost and has been found. And what does that next sentence say? And they began to celebrate.

I can just tell you from a pastor's heart sometimes when we say, hey, I just want you to know so. And so this week, prayed receive Jesus as their savior. And we'll all sit there and we'll go, you want revival? Let's start celebrating like heaven does. I can tell you in heaven, it's not a bravo, it's not that.

I'm telling you, I'm telling you, it's a party. Can you imagine? Can you imagine right now, right now in heaven, what's happening? Some of you that have lost your dads and your moms and they're in heaven. And loved ones and they're up there.

Can you imagine the ongoing party? Somebody say, woo, and then somebody else, whoo. I mean, it's like it's just a constant woo hoo moment. I sound like Ric Flair. I mean, it's just like, constant.

But down here, sometimes for us in our depravity, it's like pulling teeth just to get us to clap when we should be celebrating that someone has come back to life. I'm telling you, when we get the heart of God, I'm going to cut the message short because this is where I'm going to land it. All right? When we get the heart of God, that's exactly what we want to see. The Pharisees are this older brother who's over there pouting, I've kept all the rules and I've done everything.

You never even killed a fatted calf. And this, your son came home. You notice that, Mom? Sometimes you'll say to your husband, your son today, that's exactly what he did. But the dad flips it on.

He says, this brother of yours. Guys, there's right now, within the shadow of our steeple, there is lost people. There's lost people in this community. 27,000 people make Stevens county their home. And we might be lucky if 3,000 of them are in church this morning.

Do the math. That means there's 24,000 people in Stevens county that don't have a church home that may not know Jesus Christ.

And God is calling us to go call them to come home to the kingdom.

What about you? Dad's in this room today. How's your family doing? This isn't a moment to go. Like, man, I'm just a stupid dad.

No, no, no, no. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's always an opportunity for us to say, you know what? This is how I want to lead.

Better my family. Maybe you need to sit your son and daughter down that haven't talked in five years and say, you know what, guys? As your daddy, this is what I want to happen.

Lead. Be the leader in your family and church. Us as the body of Christ, we have been called to go tell the world the same message that Jesus Christ proclaimed 2000 years ago. Repent. Change your mind.

Come to your senses. Make a move. Call out to the Father and humble yourself. And when that happens, the gospel can be received. Do you know the gospel?

Do you know the gospel? Somebody asked you today, like, I really don't know how to Be saved. What would you say to them? Gosh, I can't find Jamie's number.

Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, came to this earth to die for sin. He died the death we deserve. Romans 6:23. And it's my sin that separates me from my father. But if I will receive by faith that Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross and was raised again.

Don't leave that part off. I heard somebody preach the gospel this week, and they left the resurrection out of it and went, oo, come on. That's the whole. That's the peace. Because if he died the death I deserve, he came back to life to show that he beat the sin that I've committed, I've committed, you've committed that took him to the grave.

But he was raised again and has life. And he can give you life eternal if you will repent. Trust Jesus Christ, you can be saved. And I want that to be on your lips. And you, man, I don't know that I can say that.

The Holy Spirit, if he can make a donkey speak in the Old Testament, he can make you speak, too.

When we're willing to leave the land and stop eating after pigs, repent and come home to the Father. Father. Father, would you speak to us this morning as we open up this altar? God, there may be some here that maybe they're hurt. I mean, this is a tough message, but it's also a refreshing message to know that if somebody here this morning is struggling in their walk with Christ or maybe they're lost.

Randy and I will be down here in the front. You can come talk to us. But don't leave this place lost. Don't leave this place without knowing for sure that if something happened to you that you would be with Christ forever. But here's the other thing.

Maybe you're here this morning and you are grieving in your own family. You've got brokenness. Or maybe as a dad, there's something that you say, you know, I just. I need help with this. God will help you.

Don't think you've got to come up with the solution. And as I said earlier, with your sin, you probably don't have the power to do it, but maybe this morning, take this time as we sing, to come and pray. We know this is an open altar. We can come and bring all of our needs up here. We pray for each other.

Crosby's down in the front. Randy's up here. I'm up here. But as you stand with me now, let's sing and if you have a need, come and lay it down at the feet of Jesus.