(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

Today we're going to talk about the heart of God and how God intends to express his heart of who he is to humanity, to all of us, no matter what background we come from.

Our creator, our great God wants to express his heart to us.

He wants us to know who he is.

He wants us to respond to who he is, enter into a right relationship with him, and then get a download of wisdom from him how to walk in this life.

Because we need some God wisdom in this life, don't we?

I mean, all of us can be a knucklehead every now and then, right?

But how many of you know that God loves knuckleheads?

Look at your neighbor and say you're a knucklehead.

Go ahead and tell him you're a knucklehead.

But tell them God loves knuckleheads.

And today we're going to look at a story about some knuckleheads.

And they basically were coming at Jesus and complaining that Jesus was hanging out with a certain group of people, what they would refer to as knuckleheads, though they were knuckleheads themselves also.

They were complaining that Jesus was hanging out with certain people.

And then what Jesus does is remarkable.

He comes back with three stories about why he was hanging out with what they referred to as basically knuckleheads and what he was really here for.

And it was for them and it was for the knuckleheads.

It was for both.

And Jesus remarkably steps into telling some stories about a couple of knuckleheads.

And then what he does is he begins to reveal in that story the heart of our heavenly father, the heart of our great God.

And so the story is really about the heart of God.

It's not about the knuckleheads, though the knuckleheads fit in the story.

It's really about God's heart.

Because all of us need to hear our creator's heart.

And if you've been going to church for a while, you may have heard this story, but I do believe that we all have a tendency to get off track.

We can get going in the wrong direction.

And this story about God's heart is for you as well as it is for somebody, you know, somebody else.

And so today, let us look at this story.

It's Fountain of Luke chapter 15.

And I want to kind of start it off with looking at how these people responded to Jesus hanging out with other people.

The Bible says this in Luke chapter 15 verses one and two, tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.

In other words, Jesus drew a diverse crowd of people.

They came to hear Jesus teach.

And one of the reasons people love to hear Jesus teach is because he taught with wisdom.

And he taught with the heart of God because he was God in the flesh.

But the Bible says this made the Pharisees, another group of knuckleheads, this made the Pharisees and the teachers of the religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people, even eating with them.

And so one group of knuckleheads, the Pharisees, they thought Jesus was out of line because he was associating with another group of people, knuckleheads, tax collectors and notorious sinners.

And Jesus gets right in the center of that tension and tells three stories.

The first story is about a lost sheep and how the master goes and finds the sheep.

The next one is about a lady losing a coin and turning the house upside down to find a lost coin.

And then Jesus tells this next story that we're going to look at today.

And it's really putting both sets of knuckleheads, the Pharisees and the teachers of the religious law, and also the notorious sinners who are running with their life.

He puts them both in the story and right smack dab in the middle of the story, he reveals the heart of God.

So today, I don't know where you are in your journey, but I do know that we're all in the journey and we're journeying together.

And what God says his people gather together for is to encourage each other's faith.

In other words, help realign our faith in who God is and then get on with living life as he's designed us to live life.

And this story is going to help us all on our journey today.

And so let's look at the story.

It begins in verse 11 of Luke chapter 15.

This is what it says.

Jesus says to illustrate his point, father of why he's hanging out with people.

Jesus told them this story.

He said a man had two sons, two knuckleheads.

Everybody say two.

The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die.

Sounds like a knucklehead, don't it?

His father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

A few days later, the younger son packed all his belongings and he moved to a distant land.

And there he wasted, everybody say wasted.

He wasted all his money in wild living.

About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve.

So he persuaded a local farmer to hire him and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs.

The young man became so hungry, so desperate that even the pods he was feeding the pigs, the pigs food looked good to him.

But no one standing around him gave him anything.

He was starving to death Life had fallen apart.

He had received an inheritance from his father.

He had went and wasted it away.

And now he's in a spot where he's desperate.

And the Bible says he gets to this place.

And when he gets to this place, the Bible refers to it in verse 17, he finally came to his senses and he said to himself at home, even the hired servants had food enough to spare.

And here I am hungry.

I will go home to my father and say, father, I have sinned against both heaven and you.

I have, I've missed it.

What life is all about.

It says I have sinned against you father and against heaven.

You know, sin's an interesting word.

Sin literally means missing the bullseye.

Think of a bullseye on a target and your life is like an arrow.

And what sin literally means is your life is designed to hit the bullseye every single time.

But what happens is we miss that bullseye with our life because you know, the Bible says sin entered the world through the first man and the first woman.

And we all have a tendency to get, get off target with our life and miss.

And what we learn from this story is it's, it's not about the myths, but it's about, it's about understanding that you've missed admitting that you've missed this, this guy here admits he missed admitting that you missed and then turning away from the myths and then getting your life back on target.

We refer to that in the church world as repent, turn away from your sin, your myths.

Don't keep on missing.

God's way too good to leave you in a spot that you keep missing the target or the bullseye with your life.

Every single time he will get you back on target.

He goes on and says, I am no longer worthy of being called your son.

Please take me on as a hired servant.

This reveals to us that this son, though he got in a desperate situation, he turned his heart back towards God.

And he says, I'm going to turn around and go back to my father.

He still doesn't understand the heart of the creator of the heart of the father.

Because he says, I just want to be a hired hand, a servant.

And he goes back.

The Bible says this.

So he returned home to his father.

And while he was still a long way off, here's his father.

His father saw him coming filled with love and compassion.

He ran to his son.

He embraced him and he kissed him.

His son said to him, father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and I'm no longer worthy of being called your son.

But everybody say, but in other words, the father, the heart of God stopped him right there.

Because the reality of it is, is some of you have sinned against heaven, sinned against God.

You said, man, I just want to go back.

I just want to go back and begin to, to be a servant and to, to my, to my father or whatever else.

And again, there's nothing wrong with wanting to serve your great God.

But if your heart is, you want to go serve your great God to try to, so to say, get back in good measures with him, you're missing the whole gospel.

The good news, missing the heart of your father.

In other words, your father don't want you to get back in right relationship with him.

So you prove to him that you're good enough.

He wants you to get back in right relationship with him so he can give you a download of wisdom.

And then you can begin to walk in the fullness of who he says that you are.

But his father said to his servants, quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him, get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet.

And you need to kill the calf that we have been fattening.

We must celebrate with a feast for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life.

He was lost, but now he is found.

So the party began.

My friends, remember this isn't a story about one knucklehead.

This is a story about two knuckleheads and the heart of a father towards all knuckleheads.

Meanwhile, the older son, the other knucklehead, he was in the field working.

And when he returned home, he heard the music and dancing in the house.

And he asked one of the servants, what is going on?

Your brother is back.

He was told, and your father has killed the fattened calf.

We are celebrating because of his safe return.

And the older brother was angry and he wouldn't go in.

So his father, the father's heart, he goes out and he begged him, why don't you come in to the house too with your family?

But he replied all these years, a slave for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to.

And in all that time, you never gave me even one young goat for the feast of my friends.

Yet when this son of yours comes back from after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf.

His father said to him, look, dear son, you have always stayed by me and everything I have is yours.

We had to celebrate this happy day for your brother was dead in the trespasses of his sin.

But now he has come back to life.

Have you come back to the heart of your heavenly father and been made alive in Christ Jesus?

And what the father says, he was lost, but now he is found.

The heart of our creator is that we will discover his great love for us, make our way back home.

And as he in powers us with every spiritual blessing known to humanity, we can come alive again and be all he has designed us to be.

But you know, you can live all around church stuff.

You can live all around God's people like the second knucklehead and really miss the heart of the father and the heart of your creator.

And my creator is this, that he loves human beings.

No matter who you are, where you've been or how many times you've messed up, he loves you.

No matter what color your skin is, no matter what dialect you speak, what language you speak, no matter whether you're male or female, the heart of our creator is love him for God.

So love the world that he gave his one and only son, whoever shall believe in him will not waste away, will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Have you received the love that comes from your father?

And see, maybe you're in a place that you've believed on Christ's blood for the forgiveness of your sin.

But you've forgotten the love of the father.

And maybe you've strayed off course and we all can become knuckleheads and stray off course.

But I need you to know today, there's a great invitation.

And that invitation from your heavenly father, and my heavenly father through Christ Jesus and his resurrection is come home.

Come home.

And I want to show you the heart of the father today because some of us are in here today and we're bitter instead of better.

Because something has happened in our life.

Something has happened in our life.

Some of us today, we've strayed way off course and we recognize it.

And the Bible says, here's the deal.

When you do that, you come to your senses and you come back to the father and let the father put his arms around you and begin to love you back into greatness.

But others of us have become bitter like these Pharisees or these other knuckleheads like to and we're comparing our life to somebody else's life.

And what we're constantly doing is trying to prove ourself to our great God.

And we're in a state of proving ourself over and over again.

And because we're working so hard to prove ourself to God, instead of just receive his love and walk in the fullness of his wisdom, we're bitter at the world around us.

And whether you're bitter today or whether you're in a place that you've been running from God, I need you to know that this story teaches about God's heart.

A lot of people call this the story of the prodigal son.

But I want to read to you the definition because it's not just about one son.

It's about a God who has a heart for both of his sons.

Or let's call it all humanity.

But the definition of prodigal is this, wasteful, recklessly extravagant, having spent everything.

And so the central theme of this story is more about who God is in spite of who we are.

Because God spent everything in order to let you know about his amazing love for you.

He gave his son on a cross so all humanity down through the ages would know about a God that loves you more than sin.

He loves you more than anything you can imagine.

And though sin has got you off target, he gave his son to pay the penalty for that sin on a cross once and for all and for all people everywhere at all time.

He defeated death.

He rose from the grave three days later.

And it displayed God's great power over death, over sin, and over the grave.

And my friend, you need to understand that Jesus don't want to just forgive you of your sin.

He wants to reconnect you to the Father's love.

And so many people stand in forgiveness, but they fail to enter into the relationship that Jesus came to offer you.

You can come in to your heavenly Father's throne room because of what Jesus has done.

He has given you a counselor and a teacher if you would just learn to listen to the one who gives you divine wisdom.

He's known as the Holy Spirit.

And my friend, you can begin to walk in the fullness of who God says you are in a world that surrounds you that is full of sin.

We're all in the battle together.

But the reality of it is we're here to sharpen each other's faith in who Jesus is and who God is and keep on keeping on.

Keep on doing what God has designed us to do.

So this story is really more about a prodigal God than a prodigal son.

One who will give everything for you to come back home.

And so today, if you haven't responded to the Father's heart, I want to point out some things in Luke chapter 15 verse 20 to you today that may help you do that.

Number one is this, as you need to know, He is looking for you, not pointing at you.

He is looking for you, not pointing at you.

A lot of people again are in the performance mode, oh God is standing with a pointed finger waiting for me to mess up.

And the reality of it is no, He's looking for you to turn away from your mess up and start your journey back to Him.

Repentance.

He's looking for you.

You know what, and again, what the enemy means for harm, God can use for good.

Do you understand what that means?

Because the reality of it is, you know what, the enemy wants you to continue to live a lifestyle of sin and head down that dead end street.

But as you get to the end of that dead end street, I'm here to tell you, and that dead end don't work for you no more.

If you will turn your heart back home, there's a Father who sees you and He's ready to receive you and He's looking for you and He's hoping you get to that place of desperation in your life and then you'll turn your heart back home.

But the reality of it is, you have to have a proper view of who God is.

And God is standing ready to receive you if you'll desperately turn your heart and say, you know what, this just ain't working.

I'm a knucklehead.

And you turn back to God and you begin to understand He is for knuckleheads.

Look what it says here in Luke chapter 15 verse 20, and while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him.

That means that the father each and every day had gotten up, gazed at the window, and expected a response from his son.

In other words, he knew that it would be a day when that son would get to the end of himself and start back home.

And what that means to me, if the father saw him from a long ways off, the father was looking for him.

And if the father was looking for him, I got to believe the father is looking for you and the father is looking for me and the father is looking for each and every person to return back to him.

If you would so desperately come to the end of yourself and begin to recognize who God is.

The Bible says not only is he looking for the son, but God also, the heart of God is, He has compassion for you.

Look what it says there in Luke chapter 15 verse 20, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming and he was filled with love and compassion.

It amazes me because Jesus is telling a story about the heart of a father and the father loved his son the whole time his son was messing up.

You know, the Bible says God loved you and me while we were yet sinners.

In other words, God has loved us and had compassion on us the whole entire time.

And the Bible also says to us in John chapter three, verse 17, that Jesus didn't come into this, into this world to, to basically come against us.

But Jesus, Jesus, he came into this world to save us from our sin, not to stand with a, with a pointed finger.

And Jesus has great compassion on humanity.

The Bible says one day, Jesus was walking around and he looked among the cities where he was walking around.

And the Bible says he was moved with compassion with, with, with such a compassion that it's like coming from his gut.

He was moved from with compassion because the people were wandering around like sheep without a shepherd.

In other words, they weren't being coached in, you know what God is for them and, and not against them.

They, they, they were not being coached in God's forgiveness and God's amazing love and God's amazing power to step into, to their sin and, and bring them out of that.

No, no.

The Bible says that he looks among all these cities and they had, they had some, some shepherds, but they were lost like sheep without a, without a shepherd.

And Jesus was moved with deep compassion.

See, our father is moved with great compassion when we don't respond to his love.

The second son in the story was angry, comparing, and the Bible says his father goes out and begs him to come in the house, a compassionate love, step into this and experience all I have to offer you.

So he's looking for you, not pointing at you.

He has compassion for you.

And the next thing you need to understand as you step towards him, he runs towards you.

Luke 15, 20.

And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him come and filled with love and compassion.

He ran to his son.

He embraced him and he kissed him.

His son said to him, father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and I'm no longer worthy of being called your son.

Again, you can study historical things around this passage.

It was very odd for a father to run in this particular culture, but here he does something very odd.

He runs towards his son as his son steps towards him and he meets him right where he is.

And I believe with all of my heart, as many times as I got desperate for my father's love and he ran and met me in my desperation that he'll meet me again and again and again, and he'll meet you too.

He will run towards you if you will step towards him.

Why do we continue to run away from the father?

Get angry with the father, be bitter with the father because something happens to us in this life.

You need to understand this life is broken.

It is filled with sin.

The world has missed and God is still for you in a world that is missed.

The Bible says the first man, the first woman, they were banished from the perfection of the garden.

They were banished from the garden, but what's remarkable though, they didn't have access to God's perfection.

God still came to them and nothing has changed.

It's God still is working in an imperfect world with his perfection and he steps in and I know you got pain.

I know you got brokenness.

I know you made mistakes.

I know it hurts.

I know relationships break up, but God is still who he says he is.

He loves with great compassion and he will step in.

But he expects you to move forward as a son or a daughter.

He expects you to know his amazing love and you come in and receive all he has to offer you and you begin to walk in that particular role.

Walk in being a son.

Walk in being a daughter.

He gives this incredible analogy of a father who loves his kids and no matter if his kids have been trying to prove themselves or been running for him for years, he steps in.

He loves them and then what he wants to do is he wants to celebrate with them.

I do believe that God stands waiting to celebrate my significance in your significance.

If we would so dare step towards the father's love.

And my friend, I know you have messed up and I know I've messed up and don't get me wrong.

When we mess up, sometimes we might need to sit down so we can get refocused on who God designed us to be.

But my Bible says that God steps in and God saves his people and then God puts his Holy Spirit in us and God begins to use us.

And so if you are sitting here today and you know what, you have stepped away from the father's love and you have a sin, I want you to know that you can return home and God can restore you.

And maybe what you need to do for a minute is just sit and bask in the father's love and let him heal your broken heart.

Let him begin to pour out to you as a son or a daughter and begin to walk in it.

And the Bible says that God disciplines those he loves.

And again, I do believe that sometimes God gives us a spanking.

In other words, I need a spanking every now and then.

And I need to sit down and learn a lesson.

And it's okay for God to tell you to sit down and learn a lesson.

That don't mean he don't love you.

But what it does mean is receive the love, learn the lesson, step out of it, step towards the greatness that Jesus created you to be and begin to walk in it.

Let's celebrate a life of significance that God has for us.

Look what it says, Luke 15, verses 22 and 24.

His father said to the servants, quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him.

Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet.

Kill the calf.

We've been fattening.

We must celebrate with a feast.

But the son of mine was dead.

He's now returned to life.

That speaks to me.

He was lost, but now he is found.

My friend, I don't know where you are today, but the Bible says right here, so the party began.

And I don't know, you know what, how far off course you've got, how bitter you may have come.

But what I do know is according to this story, Jesus says the reason he came to associate with anybody is so that they could begin to understand the father's love.

And I do believe that Jesus is here through the power of the Holy Spirit today, fellowshipping with his people.

And all you have to do is do like the son did and respond to his amazing love.

And if you will respond, you will turn away from your sin, repent of your sin, receive the forgiveness of your sin through Christ Jesus, and begin to walk in the fullness of who God makes you to be.

God will begin to download wisdom and help you do this journey.

It's not going to be easy.

We have to submit to him over and over and over again.

But he loves you in spite of how far off course you have gotten.

And I do believe that some of us need to respond to his love today.

And so if that is you and the Holy Spirit is at work in this place, speaking to your heart and you need to respond to his amazing love, I'm going to give you the opportunity to do that today.

I'm going to ask that everybody in this room go ahead and bow your head.

And maybe today is the day that for the first time you've decided that, you know what, I want to be a follower of Jesus.

I want to respond to the love that he offered on a cross for the forgiveness of my sin.

My friend, you know what, you can do that right here and right now.

Maybe you've responded to that and you've received the forgiveness, but you just simply been a knucklehead.

And today you're ready to get your life back on track.

I need you to know that God still forgives you.

God still loves you.

And God still has a plan for your life.

And it's a life of significance.

So no matter how you need to talk to God across this room in your seat today, I just pray that you begin to talk to him today and say something like this, that that's going to come out of my mouth and, and let God work in your life.

Say God today, I admit that I have gotten life off course.

Today, God, I admit that I'm a knucklehead.

Let's say that.

And today, God, I need Jesus in my life.

Say, God, thank you for sending Jesus, the perfect one to shed his blood on that cross for the forgiveness of my sin.

Me missing the mark of your glorious standard for my life.

Tell God today, you recognize the power that lifted him from the grave belongs to great to the great God.

And you want to live by that same power.

Today.

Tell God, you believe that Jesus came back from the grave to give you life and freedom empowered by the spirit of the living God.

Tell God, thank you for the gift of Jesus, the gift of life and the gift of his Holy Spirit.

Now commit to God that from this point forward, you're going to choose to follow him and his ways and his wisdom.

And you're going to begin to live a life of significance.

And the Bible says that there's a celebration every time one person turns away from their sin and turns their heart towards the father who loves them through Christ Jesus.

There's basically a party that goes on in the heavens.

And so today we celebrate with all of heaven for all of those who have decided to follow Jesus.

And we pray this prayer in his most holy and precious name.

Amen.