 All right, well, hello, Radiant Church. Good to be with you. As Pastor Ben said, my name's John Zonovan, Campus Pastor here at Richland. I just wanna welcome all of you who are watching online and at the Portage Campus. We're so grateful that you're part of our church body and we are all in this together, amen? Amen. Hey, I wanna just also take a second. I know Ben honored me. He stole my thunder for him, but I do just wanna say that Ben and his family, his wife Brooke, they have four amazing children, Lucas and Sophia and Bree and Lil' Kayla and they have been such an incredible blessing to this campus and to our organization. He's more behind the scenes when I hired him. I was like, look, I don't need you to be like a loudmouth in the lobby, bro. I can do that. I need you to like fix all the problems. So, but no, he's a leadership just guru and so good at just so many things. So I just wanna honor Ben and you don't get to see him all the time, but he is constantly working hard. So also wanna just reiterate what Sarah said in the update. Like our big give, if you weren't able to last week, get one of the big give kind of booklets that are available in both of our lobbies. I wanna encourage you, pick one up. If you are watching online and you need to stop by like one of the campuses to get one, do it. It is one of the most beautiful depictions of what we are as a body of Christ that I think we've ever done. It lays out all of the missionaries. We support what they're doing, the impact that they're having and ultimately the impact that you're having as a partner of Radiant Church. So please, please, please take advantage of that. It's gonna be a really powerful season. So if you brought your Bibles, turn to the book of Luke. Genesis, Exodus, Luke. Just kidding, that's not right. It's New Testament. Luke chapter 15 and before we read it together, I wanna just give you a little bit of context for this message and how it came to be. I called it Getting the Father's Heart. I was gonna call it something specifically about protocols because that's what we're going to talk about today. Primarily is God's heart for protocols or God's heart for lost people. We use the word prodigal a lot out of what we're about to read in Luke chapter 15. But if you've not been around church or you're not familiar with the story of the prodigal son, you probably are. It's someone who has sort of walked away or left the father's love or turned, let's say, their back or walked away from their faith. That's a phrase we use for protocols, but it's really just anyone who's not currently serving, Jesus, not currently surrendered their life to the Lord. And the sort of genesis of this message came from a Sikh service. It was January 17th, 2018. So almost three years ago, we had a guest speaker, our Sikh 21 days of prayer and fasting happens in January. We had a guest speaker, Bani Leapshire, who was here on a Wednesday night and it was packed. That was back in the day when you were just worried about bad breath. I mean, that was basically why you social distance. But anyways, it was happening. I don't remember anything that he spoke on, which is probably true for most of us when you hear a message from three years ago, but for some reason I was in the back and I had my cell phone on when he came in at the end of the service and he began to prophesy over radiant church. And for whatever reason, I just started recording and he began to speak to the identity in one way of radiant church. And he said, this is going to be a house. God is positioning radiant church to be a house where prodigals come home, where lost people come and experience the father's love and come into relationship with the father. He said this, the spirit of this age is not stronger than the spirit of our God. And he prophesied that. And he said, radiant church, I want you to get ready because this is going to be the first wave of the harvest is prodigals coming back into relationship with the father. And so that just spoke to me, spoke to my heart. And I wanted to just take a message and really highlight how we as believers and as Christians can pray for, intercede for and ask God to move on behalf of those in our lives that we know aren't following Jesus, aren't part of a covenant relationship with God. So I'm going to ask you like right off the bat to just raise your hand here, Portage online. If you know someone in your family, in your relationship, spouse, child, daughters, coworker who isn't in a relationship with God right now, doesn't, isn't a Christian, doesn't follow Jesus. Okay, that's a, most of us, 90% of us in this room know someone who we would consider a prodigal, consider someone who's not following Jesus with their life. And so I want to just pray into that. I'm hoping what we bring today encourages us as a body of Christ, but even more inspires us to partner with the heart of God and seeing the loss come home and seeing his children return to him. So we're going to pray and we're going to read Luke chapter 15. Father, we ask in these next few minutes that you would illuminate your word. Like God, as we've worshiped, as we've come into your presence, Father, we have created a throne, a place for you to dwell. We believe your Holy Spirit is here. We believe our prayers matter. We believe that the body of Christ is God, your church. And so I just pray, Father, that you would come and meet us wherever we are by the power of your Holy Spirit in Jesus' name. Everyone said, amen. I'm going to read the first three verses of Luke 15 first. It says this, now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him, that's Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying this man receives sinners and he eats with them. So he told them this parable. Jesus is ministering. Jesus is walking the land of Israel, discipling his disciples, healing the sick, ministering to everyone. And in this moment, he has an audience that's very distinct. There's two groups of people that are here to listen to Jesus. And that's what they would do. They would follow him. Mobs of people would follow him. He would set up somewhere and he would just begin to teach. And in this instance, there's two very distinct groups. Look what verse one says, tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear him. So this is group A. And if you don't really study maybe your New Testament, you don't know what a tax collector is or means. You're like, oh, they work for each and our block. That's cool. No, that's not really what tax collectors were. They were the worst of the worst in the eyes of the Jewish people. They were Jews who basically sold out their own people, went to work for Rome and then extorted money and basically just completely sold out their heritage, sold out their faith in order to make money in order to get a cut in order to be powerful in the eyes of Rome. So people hated tax collectors and then sinners. Like we can be like, oh, we're all sinners. No, this would be, again, people who were down and out, people prostitutes, thieves, lepers, sick people. Like these were the ones who in that day they looked down upon and said, you can't possibly be loved by God because you have these issues. Like you're paralyzed or you have a disease or there's a deformity or whatever that was. That group of people is hearing Jesus and something is resonating in their hearts. They're seeing him heal lepers. They're seeing him speak to the underprivileged. They're seeing him connect with sinners and tax collectors and have dinner with Zacchaeus at his house. And they're like, there's something in them that is drawn to the words of Jesus. Like could this seriously be for me? Is this message, is this kingdom that he's referring to? Is that, could that really be something that I could be a part of? I could be accepted in because the disparity between the religious people and the sinners was just massive chasm. And so they're listening and they're wondering and they're being filled with hope. And that's group A. And then group B, Bible says are the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the scribes. They were the ones who we would call the Christians of the day in the sense that they knew the Bible. They knew what the law said. They kept the law. They were meticulous in their keeping track of what to do and what not to do. And they have a very different response to Jesus. It says they're grumbling. They're complaining. And they're looking at Jesus and saying, how could you claim to be a man of God much less like the Messiah? And you're eating with sinners. You're dining with thieves. You're mingling with the lowest form of society. And they were sick about it. And they were indignant towards Jesus because of it. And it's in this context that Jesus goes into the story that we're gonna look at. But I want to just begin by saying the Father's heart is not something you automatically get for people just because you know the Bible or just because you're religious or just because you grew up in a Christian home. The Pharisees and the scribes, as I said, they were the who's who of that day. They were the leaders. They were the ones everyone wanted to be like but they didn't have the Father's heart. They were filled with pride. They were filled with judgment towards people who weren't like them, people who they considered less than them, people they considered sort of the scum of the earth. And the challenge we have today as the body of Christ 2,000 years later is what is our heart going to be towards lost people, sinners, the ones that don't look like us. Act like us, vote like us, love us. Jesus said in Luke 6, if you just love people who love you, that's easy. What credit should you get? Sinners do that. If you lend to people and you know you're gonna get paid back, what good is that? Even sinners do that but can you love your enemies? Can you love people who aren't like you? Can you pray for people who persecute you and hurt you and speak evil of you? That is what it looks like to have the heart of the Father as a follower of Jesus and it's something that happens through getting to know God, getting to know God's heart. When you know God's heart, you begin to love others well. You begin to love others differently. You see through a different lens and instead of the body of Christ today looking at groups of people, looking at those who aren't like us and bringing judgment and condemnation and pointing the finger when we have the heart of the Father, we pray different, we see different, we intercede differently when we have God's heart. We don't have enemies in the kingdom of God. The Muslims aren't our enemies. Atheists aren't our enemies. They're not who we're fighting. They're who we're fighting for. Ephesians six says that we're not wrestling against flesh and blood but there's principalities and powers and spiritual forces at work. But our heart, the Father's heart is that no one should perish. That no one should not have a relationship with him. Second Peter three nine says that God is slow and his promises not because he can't do it but because he's patient and he wants all to come to repentance and to know him. And so I wanna talk about what does it look like to get the Father's heart for the lost and for the prodigals and for people who don't have a relationship with Jesus. So it's in this context that Jesus goes into a parable. Verse three says he tells him this parable and there's three sort of stories he tells in Luke. He starts with the parable, the lost sheep. He says, look, there's a shepherd and all of it is him trying to communicate the Father's heart. There's a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and he's going along and one of them wanders off and he doesn't know where it is. And he leaves that one or he leaves the 99 to go after that one. The shepherd's heart is drawn to the one who's wandered off to the one who's walked away. And so that's the lost sheep. And I think one translation says that someone in the back raises their hand and says, so what you're saying is that he chases me down and fights till I'm found and then leaves the 99. And Jesus was like, yeah, Cory, we get it. It's gonna be a good song. So anyway, I'm just kidding. Kidding! But that's where the song came from. So that's number one. Second one is a lost coin. So there's someone who is looking for, a woman has 10 coins, she loses one. She moves the furniture. She's not like, okay, it's cool. I have nine more. No, there's this purpose. There's this intention to like, no, I have to find it. And I have to move things and I have to make some things happen so that I can find it. And then when she does, she says, celebrate with me. Like calls her neighbors, calls her friends. I found that which was lost. And Luke 15 and 10 is so beautiful. It says in the same way, the angels of heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents over one person who gives their life to Jesus. There's parties in heaven. And then he goes into sort of the crown jewel in my opinion of the story and of the father's heart in the prodigal son. And we know the story. Father, everything he's worked for, everything he's lived for, his younger son comes to him and says, I want what I'm gonna get when you die now. I don't care about you. I basically, he's saying, I wish you were dead, but you're not dead. So give me what I'm gonna have when you are dead. And he disgraces his family, he disgraces his father and he takes his money and he goes and he gets a one way ticket to Vegas and he blows his money on prodigal living. He's living it up. He's living his dream. He's getting texts from like Charlie Sheen, like, bro, bro, slow it down a little man. You're going crazy here. Like he's going off the rails, right? But primarily the story of the prodigal son is not about how bad the son is. It's not about his lack of character. What Jesus really wants to communicate in the story is not the prodigal son's failures, but the father's love, the heart of the father in the story. Because what we see is a father who's not angry, he's not vindictive, he doesn't shame him. He's not even disappointed. What we see is a father who every day wakes up, this is the picture I get, walks out onto his porch, looks out over the landscape of the direction that his son had left with an expectation and with a desire and a motivation to see his son return. You see the love of God that says, I don't wish any would perish. I don't care where you've been, what you've done. My heart is for you to come back. My heart is for you to be restored. My heart is for my sons and daughters to come home to the father's house. And that's what Jesus is communicating to these people. And again, I see like the sinners and the tax collectors like their hearts drawn towards this idea that there's a God who loves them and would know them and would receive them. And the reason it's so important is because we cannot effectively pray, disciple, evangelize, do any of the things we're called to do if we don't have the father's heart. When we have the father's heart, we're obviously much more effective in our prayers, much more effective in our witness, much more effective in how we disciple and how we live when we've partnered with God in his heart for people. How we see lost people says a lot about how well we know the father. Our job is to love people. God's job is to fix them. God's job is to save them. John 13, 35, Jesus said, there's going to be something that marks you as my follower. It's going to be something that people see that will enable them to know that you are a follower of Jesus and it's the way that you love. It's the way that you love. We're called to love people. Now in our society, we've unfortunately made this mistake that loving people means we affirm everything. We agree with everything. That's not what love is. I'm not saying that, I don't believe that. But at its core, we don't fix people. We don't bring people to a place of repentance. The Holy Spirit does that. We love people. We love people into the kingdom of God. And that's what Jesus is communicating here. And so I want to just, again, in the few minutes that we have, I want to give us three practical things from this story of the prodigal son that we can do when we pray for prodigals, when we believe for them to come home. The first is this, and you can write these down. It's out of verse 14. We want to pray for prodigals that when they experience famine, they'll remember that there is food, there is substance, there is what they need back at the Father's house. When they experience famine, they'll remember that what they really want, what really fulfills isn't where they are. It's found at the Father's house. It's found in the Father's love. And you don't have to pray, oh, I hope they do experience famine. They will experience famine. Anyone who walks away from God, I promise you at one point, will experience famine. And I know that how? Because sin can not deliver on its promise that it tells people, that it tells our culture, that it tells a generation. It says, this is gonna make you happy. This is gonna fulfill you. This is gonna, every longing you've had can be found in this, and it can never deliver. It lies. It can't keep its promise. Hebrews says that the pleasures of sin are fleeting. The fleeting doesn't deny that sin can feel good, doesn't deny that there is some pleasure found in a sinful lifestyle, but it doesn't last, and it can't fulfill, and it never keeps the promise that it makes. And that's what the enemy is telling a generation. You don't wanna serve God. You're gonna be bored. You're gonna have no freedom. You're gonna have to, who knows? Live in a hut somewhere in Africa, probably, you say yes to Jesus. And you see that in our generation. You see this idea that, oh, this is, and that's how I grew up. I grew up thinking that God was this massive killjoy, impersonal, didn't want me to have any fun, and I was a prodigal for the majority of my young, my teens and into my early 20s, is because I believed that. And it's not true. I talked to, it's same thing kind of with marriage. I talked to a young man in the lobby a while ago who was like, yeah, I'm dating this girl, but I don't know if I'm gonna get married, because I don't wanna lose all my freedom. I said, look, bro, I've been married 20 years and I can still do anything I want that Kendra says it's okay, basically, so. It's gonna be fine, bro, trust me. But that's the lie, and it makes a promise it can't deliver on. It reminds, raise your hand in here if you like going to the movies. I don't know if we're allowed to right now, but if, okay, like to the theater. Okay, that's a lot of us. You're all sinners, it's fine. Lord, I'll forgive you, I'm just kidding. I am not a big movie goer. I'm not built really for the movies. I end up having like an armrest battle. I wanna stand up in the beginning and be like, we are establishing armrest dominance right now, Kendra, okay? I'm 10 times bigger than you, no one's kidding. But if you ever seen a trailer, like a preview for a movie, and you're like, wow, that music was epic. The scenes are amazing. Every line is hilarious. I have to go see this movie, right? And you go and you spend your $49 on a ticket and $17 for an ice water. And you're all like, I'm ready. And then you're watching the movie and you're like, when is the movie I saw in the previews gonna start? Like, because this thing sucks, this is terrible, right? Is that only me? Is that ever happen to anyone? Raise your hand again, make me feel better. Okay, it happens, right? You're like, oh, this is gonna be epic. It's gonna be amazing. And then you get there and you kind of feel duped. Like the music was not that great. Every funny line was actually in the previews and it's actually kind of terrible. And you're like, I can't get those two hours of my life back ever. And I spent $400. That's what sin is like. That's what it does. It says it promises something that it can't deliver. And when you are praying and interceding for a prodigal, pray. Pray that when they experience famine, when there's that rock bottom, when there's that idea that this isn't what I wanted to be, that they remember. The pride doesn't stand in the way. The lies of the enemy won't stand in the way. They remember there's food in the Father's self. Second thing I want us to pray when it comes to prodigals is that they'll have a moment where they come to themselves. Look at verse 17. This is so encouraging. The prodigal son loses, there's a famine. He spent all his money. He can't get anyone to help him. He can't even like eat what the pigs are eating. Like he's at his rock bottom in verse 17. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my Father's higher servants have more than enough bread? Pray that there'll be a moment where something is revealed to their heart and they come to a place where they recognize, this is what happened to the prodigal son. He recognized how I'm living is not really who I am. The choices I'm making are not actually my identity. This isn't truly who I am. Instead, I'm working through this facade. I'm trying to find joy and peace and happiness in this lifestyle, but ultimately this isn't who I am. And he had that moment. He came to himself and had a revelation from the Spirit of God. And what I wanna encourage you is this. Those are the seeds and the words that were spoken over him at the Father's house when he was in relationship with his Father. Those moments, he had a great Father. He had someone who loved him and cared for him. And it was those moments that suddenly came to his remembrance and he said, this isn't who I wanna be. This isn't what's really gonna satisfy me. And that will happen if we pray. Here's what the Bible says in Isaiah chapter 55 verses eight through 11. I love this. God says in verse eight, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. And my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making the ground bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Verse 11, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty. It shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the things for which I sent it. Listen to the message translation, I love this. So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do. They'll complete the assignment that I gave them. The words that you're praying over your children, the words that you're prophesying over your friends or your coworkers or the people in your family that are lost, they are seeds that will eventually begin to bear fruit in their lives. And sometimes we're so rushed in our society. We want results right away, but every farmer knows you don't harvest in the same season that you sow. The seed has to have time. The seed has to germinate. The seed needs to be able to develop. And then you begin to see the harvest. Then there begins to be growth. And I'm telling you, every prayer that you pray for someone who's lost, someone who's turned their away from the Lord is a seed. And it will accomplish what the Lord sent it to do. It will complete the purpose that God has for it. And we as Christians, instead of pointing the finger, instead of condemning, instead of pointing at everything that's wrong, need to begin prophesying about what God wants to do in a generation, prophesying about who God is and what he's promised in his word for a generation, for your children, for your coworker, for those who are lost that none should perish. That none, it's not okay to God that there's one person who dies and doesn't know who he is. It's not okay to God that there's one person who walks away and isn't brought back by prayer and by supplication and intercession. Like God's asking us, will you partner with me and sowing those seeds into the lives of people? And then we have to trust who God is and what he will do and his timing that there'll be a moment where they come to themselves. I'll never forget I was 23 years old and I'd spent again all of my teen years pretty much. Definitely after graduating, I went to Grand Valley and I just partied. I was a people person, I loved hanging out and I began a serious downward spiral with drugs and with alcohol and that entire lifestyle began to consume me and just like I said, there was times where I was like, this is amazing, I'm having so much fun, I'm out for my parents web of confinement. This is the freedom I've been looking for and I knew in my heart that I was empty, that this wasn't all that I thought it would be but I kept it going, I kept it and I just began to fall deeper and deeper into a hole and you tell yourself certain things and you say, well, I still have a job, I was a restaurant manager, it's not like I'm on the streets, robbing people or something like I'm okay, I'm okay and I wasn't okay and my heart was hardening, my heart was hurting and I just kept pushing through and I'll never forget I had a, call it what you want, a bad incident where I'd gone about two days without sleeping, eating or drinking and I thought I was gonna die, we didn't have any drugs left, I was crying and I took pictures of my nieces and nephews, Jane and these kids or Polaroids of Ashley and they were just real little and I just remember I slept with them, I didn't even pray at that point, I don't know if I was just too dumb or too proud or what but I just, I wanted something that I actually loved and cared about close to me at that time and something changed in my heart in that moment and then the very next day, I passed out for a while, I went to this restaurant where this girl who I was kind of seeing, she, we were living this life together and I'll never forget, I'm sitting there, all of a sudden two guys come in, they're playing clothes, police officers, they arrest her, they take her out of there, she ends up being prosecuted, having to go into witness protection, I mean just the crazy, and then in that moment I was like, how did I get here, what is happening? That for me was the come to myself moment and I pray to the Lord that no one else has to be as dumb or hard headed as I was to figure that out but in that moment I was like, this is insane, like what is happening and it was literally that Sunday that I went to church here at Resurrection Life at the time, I didn't know what was gonna happen but I knew my family would be there, I knew Jane Lee would be there with the kids and there was something that was connecting there and I gave my heart to Jesus that Sunday, on March 14th, 1999 and I cried at the altar and I prayed with Pastor Lee and my life changed in one moment but ultimately it was the seeds that had been sown, it was my mom and my sister who prayed for me, I didn't even know it at the time, I saw later that my sister Jane had a journal and in it she wrote down confessions for me, she prophesied over my life, she didn't write things down, like why is John such an idiot, why is he so stupid, why can't, why can't he get his crap together, it wasn't anything like that, it was Father I thank you that you have a call on John's life, I thank you that he's gonna serve you and he's gonna know you and she began to pray those for years, it was like 1994 or 95 like for years, she wrote that and those seeds that were sown into my life finally we're able to bear fruit and I promise you I would not be here, I don't know that I would be alive if it wasn't for my sister and her willingness to pray for a prodigal pray beyond what she could see, beyond what she experienced in the moment, beyond what anything I was doing would lead her to believe could happen, she prayed in faith and she confessed in faith over my life and it literally changed my trajectory for eternity and God wants to do that in every single prodigal, every single one. When I love you Jane, I'll never ever forget how you helped me and Pastor Lee began to mentor me and obviously I've not looked back and God's been so good to me and I love being able to encourage parents who may be frustrated or discouraged that their children aren't serving the Lord like you never know, you never know what God's doing, you never know what your prayers are doing, you never know the seeds that are being sown so don't pray what you are seeing in the moment, don't pray what's happening, pray what you want to see, begin to confess the truth of God and who he is and what he's promised so you said God that my children if they grew up, they went apart from it, you said that you knew them before they were even born and you've called them and you're drawing them to yourself and just begin to sow those seeds and there will be a moment when lost people come to themselves, when they realize that sin and Satan are liars and that the only thing that satisfies is the living water, Jesus said you drink of and you'll never thirst again, you put your faith, you put your emphasis in partying, sex, money, even good things, family, something that's apart from the Lord, you'll be thirsty again, it won't last but Jesus said I am living water, begin to pray for the living water to encounter your children, your parents, your loved ones, your coworkers, it's the only thing that satisfies, pray that there'll be a moment that they come to themselves, the third thing I wanna ask you is this, to pray, what part do I play in people experiencing the love of God? What's my part? That's what I want us to pray. God doesn't, obviously God's sovereign and God does things but I'm telling you, Philippians two says God does that work in you both the will and due for his good pleasure. God uses people, God uses your prayers, God uses the saints to create a momentum, to create a scenario where his Holy Spirit can minister and move and what I'm asking is what is our part? What is your part? You at home, you in portage, what is your part? And seeing people experience the love of God, Romans two four says it's the kindness, it's the goodness of God that leads people to repentance. We need to point people to the goodness of God, not a God who's angry, not a God who's vindictive, not a God who's disappointed. We can't be the big brother in the story of the prodigal son when people come back to church, when people come back to the father. You remember him? He came in from the fields and he was angry. He heard the singing, he heard the dancing, he heard the partying and he asked one of the servants, what's going on? And he said, well, your father, your father ordered all this to happen because your brother, his son has come back and the older brother is angry. The Bible says that he was angry. He wasn't happy, he wasn't celebrating. He was moved by performance, he was moved by tradition, he was moved by everything except the father's heart and he didn't want to talk to the father, he wanted to talk to one of the servants. One way you can judge if you have the father's heart is if you're more comfortable talking to other people instead of the father about what he's doing in our world. He didn't want to talk to the father, what's going on, what's happening? That son of yours is back now and when people come back and they will and when people realize sin has lied to them and they will, the body of Christ can't sit there and say, well, you can't be here yet, you got to clean yourself up, you better figure out how you're going to look more like us. No, we open up the doors and we say, come in, we love you, God loves you and then the Holy Spirit does what he can do and he changes hearts and he changes lives. We love people into the father's house and all of us have a place, all of us have a part in that and I just want to encourage you today to allow the Holy Spirit to soften your heart for lost people, soften your heart for prodigals, begin to have a burden for those who don't know the Lord in your sphere of influence. It's easy to pray some vague prayers once in a while about people here or there or far away. I'm talking about in your sphere who you know, ask the Holy Spirit for a burden because everybody has a part to play. I was watching TV the other day and you know how sometimes there's just some movies that come on on regular channels, not like movie channels and you're like, I got to watch this. There's only a few for me. Tombstone for sure, great movie. Yeah, look at that. I got an applause for Tombstone. And Hoosiers, Hoosiers for me. I love that movie. And so it came, it was on TV. I was like, yes. And I was like, I'm just going to sit here and watch it. And I, if you don't know Hoosiers, obviously about Indiana basketball and you know, Gene Hackman plays this controversial kind of coach. But the scene that it started on, it was kind of at least halfway done, was when shooter who is this kind of town drunk and one of the fathers of the kids playing on the team, Gene Hackman, the coach goes to him and gives him a chance to be part of the team, to be an assistant coach. Like, look, you can't be drinking, you got to clean up, put a suit on, but I want you, he knew a lot about basketball. I want you on the bench and it's like, he's okay. And so he starts kind of being part of the game. So then the main coach, Gene Hackman, gets himself thrown out of the game on purpose so that shooter has to kind of run the show. And he's all nervous and it's a close game and they call time out and they all come in and he's like, oh, and then his son goes, you reckon they're gonna try to get it to number four, dad? And he's like, yeah, yeah. And he starts getting a little more confidence. And then they come back into the huddle and he says, we're gonna run the picket fence on him. I need you, Jimmy, you're gonna go here, you're the decoy and then Merle, you're gonna swing over the left and then you're gonna come around for the shot. And then he says, and boys, don't get caught watching the paint dry. Such a great movie. Sorry, I didn't probably do it justice, but it is amazing. So my point is this, you can have a great team. You can have the right ideas, but everybody has a part to play. Any good winning team knows. It's not just about one star. It's not just about one person. Everybody has a part to play. And what I believe is that we're in a, we all know we're in a unique season, but we're in a time where people are losing hope. People are losing faith. People are being overwhelmed with their situations. And the body of Christ needs to point people to the Father's heart. We need to be that for the world around us. In a world that's super divisive, super us against them, the church needs to be different. And that's my prayer. I wanna pray for, for prodigals for a moment here while we're all together. And I just want you to close your eyes. And I want you to think right now about who is it that you're believing God to intervene in their lives? Who is it that you need to pray would encounter the love of God, the heart of the Father? Maybe write it down in your Bible. Maybe write it down in your notebook. Write their name down. Commit to pray for them. Commit to ask God to move in their heart. And Father, right now we pray for the prodigals. We pray for the lost. We pray for those in our lives who don't know you, and we pray, Father, that you would remove the blinders, God, that the lies of the enemy, the seduction of sin would be revealed and removed from their hearts, God, and that they would be drawn back to the house, drawn back to the Father, drawn back to the love of God. And we pray, Father, that you would give us a burden for that, Lord. You would give us a heart like you have, a heart that breaks for what breaks yours, that emits all of the chaos, all that's going around us, wouldn't become so self-centered that we forget that there are people who need our prayers, people who need us to speak and intercede on their behalf. God, I pray for that today. I pray for every name that's written down. I pray for every single person who's thinking in their head who that is. And we give that to you, and we trust you, and we speak the Father's love over them in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, I'm gonna ask you if you would to stand up with me, and we're going to ask the worship team to come out, and we're gonna close in just a time of worship, a time of praise, a time of remembering what we're praying for, what we're believing for, what this means, how important this is, and I wanna just seal this moment together as a church. I believe that prodigals, lost people around the heart of God, they need to be on our heart. But first I wanna just pray this, I would ask you just to close your eyes for a moment. And I just wanna ask, is there anyone in this room, anyone online right now who knows that they're a prodigal, that they've walked away from God, that they aren't currently serving the Lord, that they haven't surrendered themselves to His love, and to His promise. I'm not talking about you had one bad day, I'm not talking about, you know, it's been a rough week. I'm saying you know in your heart that you have not given Jesus' Lordship of your life. I wanna give us an opportunity to do that. I wanna give us an opportunity to have a new start. God's not saying you need to, the Father wasn't like, hey, you gotta get your stuff together. The Father wasn't putting demands. All He said was, come back, here's the ring, here's the robe, here's the fatted calf. Let's celebrate that you're back home. And I'm telling you right now, the Father is looking. He's scanning the horizon to see when my sons and daughters come home and every head's bowed, every eye's closed. I just wanna ask you, if you need that in your life to just raise your hand boldly right now and say I need to come back to the Father. I need to give Him my heart. I need to give Him my life. Thank you, thank you in the back. Thank you, thank you, young man, I see that. Anyone online, I want you to put it in the comments. I want you to ask for prayer. Like this is the moment where you begin to realize the destiny and the purpose and plans that God has for you. And once you've received the Father's love, once you know who you are, then you know that God will use you to reach others. God will use you to impact the world around them. God's not waiting for you to get it together. He's not saying sit on the sidelines till you're perfect. He's saying right now you can be part of what's happening in the kingdom of God. And so Father, I pray for every person, every hand raised, every prodigal son and daughter that they would know, they can come back and they can know you and they can be embraced by you and that there's no distance, there's no awkwardness, there's no, hey, I have to prove something that even right now, God, those who have been dominated by guilt or shame or things in their past or things that they've done would be released to know that the Father's heart is for them, that their past is gone, that were new creations in Christ Jesus. I ask you, God, reveal the heart of the Father to your children in Jesus' name.