I’m Coming With | Pastor Larry Brey | Elevation Church

TL;DR Summary

Pastor Larry Brey delivers a heartfelt message about overcoming the orphan spirit and embracing our identity as children of God. Drawing from his personal experiences and biblical stories, he encourages believers to recognize the destructive patterns of rejection and abandonment that can shape our lives. This sermon is a call to understand our true identity in Christ and to reject the lies that keep us from experiencing the fullness of God’s love and acceptance.

The sermon is anchored in the story of Jonathan from 1 Samuel 14:1 and the life of Moses in Exodus 3. Pastor Larry uses these Scriptures to illustrate how the orphan spirit can manifest in feelings of inadequacy and rejection. He explains that Satan, the first orphan, uses rejection as a weapon against us, but God offers a different narrative. Through Romans 8:14-17, he emphasizes that believers are adopted into God’s family, granting us access and inheritance as co-heirs with Christ. This transformative truth challenges the orphan mindset and invites us into a relationship with God where we are fully known and loved.

Pastor Larry encourages listeners to shift their perspective and embrace their identity as sons and daughters of God. By understanding that we are not defined by our past or our failures, we can live in the freedom and confidence that comes from being part of God’s family. The message ends with an invitation to accept this truth and to see God as a compassionate Father who is always with us, ready to guide and support us through life’s challenges. This sermon is a powerful reminder of the hope and love available to us through Jesus Christ.

Full Sermon Transcript

There is nothing quite like elevation nights. I love them so much. Elevation nights 2024 is about to happen. We are coming your way and we want to see you there. It’s not only a time of worship but I’m going to be preaching. I might get Holly to preach a little bit too and we’re going to be believing God for amazing things in the following cities: Hershey, Pennsylvania; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Hoffman Estates, Illinois (that’s Chicago); Belmont Park, New York (that’s Long Island); Boston, Massachusetts; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Nice, you did good at that. Elevationnights.com, get your tickets right now. We’re going to be getting ready for you. It’s going to be amazing.

Many of you expected Pastor Steven to walk up and there was a collective sigh for some in the room. Like, it’s okay. My name’s Larry Brey but everybody calls me LB. My wife and I had the distinct privilege of being one of the original eight families that got a chance to sell our homes and quit our jobs 18 years ago to start Elevation Church. And, man, like, oh, to see what God has done. 18 years of serving, baby, look around, look what God has done. Thank you. Before we started this ministry, we got on our knees. There were no people, we had nothing, no money, we had a blank page but not a blank check. We got underneath and we just prayed, “Lord, bring the people.” We didn’t know you, but God saw you. God saw you in Gaston, God saw you in Rona, God saw you and he set this moment on your calendar to be here today to hear a word and I’m excited to deliver it.

Here’s the verse I want to give you to set up what we’re doing today. But before we get into that, I do need to say thank you, Pastor Steven. Thank you, Pastor Steven, for faithfully leading this ministry, being my pastor for 20 years. Thank you for faithfully standing in the pulpit every week preaching the word of God. I remember, gosh, probably about 17 years ago he came to me and said, “LB, I need you to do this.” And I looked at him and said, “I don’t think I can do that.” He said, “Well, I guess if you don’t believe it, you’ll have to have faith that I’ve got enough belief for both of us. I think you can do it, so go do it.” Thank you for being that kind of leader who pushes us out. Thank you, honor you, love you, Pastor Steven.

1st Samuel 14:1, just one verse to tee off where we want to go with this, says, “One day Jonathan, son of Saul, said to his young armor-bearer, ‘Come, let’s go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side,’ but he did not tell his father.” Here’s the title for today’s message. You can pick out your favorite person around you, only get one, tell them this, say, “I’m coming with.” You can look to your second favorite, don’t make them feel left out and rejected, look at them, say, “I’m coming with.” After you’ve given out at least six hugs, you can have a seat. Thank you, worship team.

In this passage of scripture, you’ve got this young man named Jonathan. He is the son of Saul, who is the king of nation Israel. The king had made some bad choices that had some devastating consequences. Because of his disobedience, he was rejected as king and would no longer be king. In this picture that we see in 1 Samuel, he had woken the dog, the Philistines, and he had abandoned the authority that God had given him as king over Israel and he took 600 of the nation’s best fighting men to hide underneath the pomegranate tree. So here you got the king, the leader of nation Israel, who has been rejected and has also abandoned his post. Those of us that want to lead, we need to understand that when we abdicate our authority, it’s the people that are punished. The consequences of this decision rippled into Jonathan’s life because Jonathan was the prince, he was supposed to be the next king of nation Israel. So he’s looking at his father’s rejection that also forced him to reject the rightful thing that he should have had. Some of you are looking at a situation that you had nothing to do with and everything you thought would happen is forfeited because of somebody else’s disobedience.

So when we read this passage, we need to understand that Jonathan did not tell his father. He looks through his armor-bearer and says, “Let’s go do something about it.” He says to him, “I’m coming with,” but he did not tell his father. There’s something about the voice that a father carries in the life of a son or daughter that can make you go one direction or another. As a kid, my dad was my hero. I remember when I was a little boy, all I wanted to do was to be with my dad. If he’s going somewhere, I’d be like, “I’m coming with,” grab my little hat, jump in the pickup truck, and like, let’s go wherever you’re going to go. I didn’t care where we were going to, I just wanted to be with my father. “I’m coming with, Dad.” I wouldn’t notice all the times that we’d be coming home, he’d be swerving and we thought it’d be kind of funny. Then finally one night, I grew up in Minnesota where it’s like really cold, it was like 10° outside, my dad was inside this place for a couple of hours and I’m on the pickup truck and it is freezing. Finally, I sat there, I said, “I wonder what he’s doing in there.” I remember sneaking out of the pickup truck, walking to the side of the building, it was called the Delroy, it was a bar. So I sneak in the side door and I walk in and I see my dad sitting at the end of the bar, drunk, talking to a woman that is not my mother. It’s in that moment that I saw my dad’s humanity and he was no longer my hero. I felt rejected in that moment, I felt like I was abandoned in that moment. I felt like that’s the moment that I lost my father. But if I look back, that was a defining moment for me where I felt like I became an orphan because if I’m honest, in my honest moments, I felt like I wouldn’t have been able to explain it as an eight-year-old, but as a kid growing up, I felt like if I could have just done it better, maybe he wouldn’t have chosen that. Because it wasn’t just that decision, it was all the ripple effects that just tore our family apart.

I want to talk about the orphan spirit today. Anybody who’s ever lived with rejection or abandonment or maybe carried this orphan spirit, God has sent me on assignment to speak to you today. If you think about the picture of an orphan, here’s the classic picture of an orphan: you’re at an orphanage, “Alright kids, somebody is coming today, so put on your best clothes and be on your best behavior and maybe you’ll get picked.” You put on your best clothes, you’re on your best behavior, and you don’t get picked because you don’t feel like you’re good enough. “If I could have just been a little bit taller, if I would have won more trophies, if I would have been more pretty, maybe somebody would have loved me, maybe somebody would have seen me, maybe they wouldn’t have abandoned me,” because the orphan always feels like it’s their fault.

I want to talk about the orphan spirit today because some of you are a grown man or woman yet you still identify as a child and as an orphan. Why? Because I have walked with this orphan spirit all of my life. Did you know the first orphan is Satan? He wanted to be like God, he was jealous of his worship, so he tries to overthrow to steal some of God’s glory. God will not let his glory go to somebody else and because of that, Satan was rejected and he was sent down, he was thrown down. It says this in Revelation 12:10, it says, “For the accuser, Satan, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down.” So the very rejection that Satan experienced is what he uses to attack you. I believe one of the primary assignments of the enemy is to use the bomb of rejection to make you feel it. Here’s the story that’s painted in Revelation 12:10: he is accusing you day and night before God. So picture Satan standing before God like, “Did you see JJ? Did you see what he did? Did you see Anony? Did you hear him? Did you see the way he’s looking?” He is hurling insults day and night, relentless in the attack of how he’s accusing you. He’s saying, “They’re not worth loving. Did you see how they acted? They’re not worth believing. Did you see what they did? Did you see what they go back to? They said they’re a follower of Jesus and then they did that last night. Come on, Jesus, come on, look at them, they’re not worth it.” That’s what the accuser is doing day and night with you.

What does our God do with that accusation? He does to you what he just did to his son. He said of Jesus before he did any public ministry, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” Before he ever did anything, he affirmed the relationship. We have a God who looks at you and said, “That’s my son, that’s my daughter, shut your pie hole.” That’s the accuser relentlessly attacking your character and he’s got good evidence to win a case in court sometimes. That does not matter because when you are the Lord’s son or daughter, no one can take you from his hand. That’s the message of the Gospel.

I remember when my son Corbin, a couple of years ago, he had a bully at school on the bus. He was smacking people in the back of the head and throwing water bottles at them, starting fights on the bus. Corbin told me about it. I said, “Listen, never start a fight, but if you start it, finish it.” I said, “Don’t go looking for a fight, but you don’t let evil back you into a corner and you always defend people who cannot defend themselves.” Maybe not James Dobson approved, but it’s what I got. So my wife and I are at breakfast one morning, we get a phone call from the principal. I knew exactly what it was and the principal’s like, “Your son, he’s been in a fight, get down to school.” I’m like, “Oh yes, I will.” So I come into the school, I see my son through the glass in the principal’s office and he’s kind of like reading dad, like how is Dad going to respond? You know that look, some of you have that way where you look at God and I need to challenge your perception of how you see your heavenly father today. Some of you have gotten in such a mess and you’re wondering, how does he see me? What does he think of me? I walked in, I looked at my son, I give him a thumbs up and a big smile.

I walk into the principal’s office and they’re like, “He’s a fighter and he should never do this.” I’m like, “That’s my son. I don’t care what he did, that’s my son.” I said, “If that punk ever does it again, I’ll be back here celebrating him. I know that you are going to have to suspend him, but after we walk out of the school, we’re going to a movie and I’m buying him a pizza because that is my son and I’m freaking proud of him.” Because the father always validates the relationship. I need you to understand that. But when you’re an orphan, you feel abandoned, there’s an absence of that voice. What have you put in that blank space? All of your doubt, all of your insecurity, all of your decisions, all of your shame. The devil doesn’t have to be accusing you, he just gets that loop playing over and over and over and over again. The enemy isn’t just accusing before God day and night, he’s at your shoulder saying, “JJ, Anthony, Chris, come on man, I can’t believe you did that.” The devil will play you, “It’s not that big of a deal, nobody even notices, nobody even really cares.” Then you do it and like, “Oh, you dirty dog, God hates you.”

What do we do with the accusation? We agree with it, we make it into a blanket, we wrap up and we just take a nap in it. We are so familiar with living in the accusation, it becomes our identity. I wonder how many orphans are in this house and the devil has been speaking lies and you are just giving agreement to it. You’re inviting him in, watching Netflix and making him a sandwich because we become so numb to the sound of the accusation, it’s no longer his voice, it becomes our voice. That’s why I want to talk about the orphan spirit today. When I think about the orphan spirit, there’s a language, there’s a vocabulary that comes with orphans. There’s a way that you start to speak and I want to look at the life of Moses. I think he’s a poster child for the orphan spirit and I want to zoom into one moment in his life.

When you see Moses, what do you see? Some of us see like Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea, coming down with the Ten Commandments. I want to zoom into a different place. This is out of Exodus chapter 3, he’s 80 years old in this scene. But to rewind the story of Moses, he was an orphan at a young age. His mother and father threw him into the river. Why? It was a righteous thing, it was the only way to keep him alive. But to the kid who’s been abandoned, the intention makes no difference. Some of you have been rejected. If we were to rewind the tape to see your mother and father, it’s the best they had, but the intention did not matter to the consequences that were devastating. He was an orphan, born a Jew but then picked up by Egyptians and he was raised in an Egyptian home. He was so confused his whole life, “Who am I? I don’t know who I am.” Then at age 40, he sees two people fighting or sees a man treating another man badly and he jumps in and he kills the guy and buries him. Then the next day, his scheme gets found out, then he runs into the desert because at a young age he was abandoned. This immense pain that he went through as a child, now at age 40, he wasn’t the one that was abandoned, he abandoned what God had called him to and he runs. Some of you have been abandoned and some of you have abandoned what God has called you to. I think it’s the orphan spirit that’s been driving Moses all along. It’s really hard to get to the right destination when I’ve got the voice of the orphan giving me turn by turn directions. I wonder why you’re getting in a traffic jam because you’re listening to the wrong voice. But I need you to be aware of the voice of the orphan who is echoing, chattering in your ear and you’ve become so familiar with it, it’s become white noise, it’s just happening. The devil doesn’t have to stand on your shoulder accusing you anymore, you just say repeat. He’s left you, he’s on to somebody else, you just keep repeating. Moses had been repeating this track, this soundtrack for 40 years. He’s 80 now, God shows up in Exodus 3, God’s going to come to him and he says, “I need you to do something.” Watch the cadence of the conversation between God and Moses now as you hear the voice of the orphan spirit speaking through Moses. I pray that you hear your voice because you and I bring the same response to a holy God who’s called us to something and Moses is responding from a place, I think it’s this orphan spirit.

In Exodus chapter 3:9, it starts with this. God’s going to come to him and you’ll see this back and forth five times. It’s fascinating to watch this thing happening. In verse 9, he says, “And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me and I’ve seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” You figure God said it, go do it, amen. No, not the orphan spirit. How does Moses respond? He says this, he says, “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?'” Here’s what I think he’s saying when I hear that. Here’s the first sound, the response of the orphan spirit is, “I can’t do that.” I can’t do that. Some of you have become really good at this response and you blame God for your disobedience. “Well, I feel as why I should pray about that.” No, you were just interjecting some Christianese to justify your disobedience. Insecurity is driving your decision and you’re not even creating a space for God to speak. You have predetermined the answer. Now, what’s the question? The answer is, “I can’t do it.” Now, what’s your question? The answer is, “I can’t do that.” What’s the question? It’s the orphan spirit in you. When you live life driven by insecurity and doubt, you don’t see any situation that would be favorable to you winning. “I can’t do that. I can’t do that.” God, I have been praying that the words of the orphan that we’re going to talk about would become bitter in your mouth so that as they become spoken, they would prompt you to say, “Nope, you don’t have to live that way. You do not have to live that way.” That’s part of the vocabulary of the orphan, “I can’t do that.”

God is so gracious. I don’t know how you picture God and sometimes we’ll paint a picture like the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath. I don’t see wrath in this conversation with Moses. I see a loving God. I don’t know what has shaped your picture of God because the reality is the father often gives a, the earthly father shapes how we see our heavenly father. Some of you have a skewed picture of your heavenly father because the earthly father isn’t what you would have wanted or your own decisions brought you to a place that you rejected it. But God is gracious and he leans in and God’s going to come back. Okay, round two, that didn’t work. Okay, here we go, Moses. God said, “I will be with you and this will be a sign to you that it is I who sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Here is Moses’ second response. This is part of the vocabulary. I hope you’re writing this down. I hope you’re capturing this in a way that you would start to examine yourself and let it be a filter that you start to let everything flow through. Am I responding with an orphan spirit or the spirit of a son or daughter? That’s what we’re going to break down today. We’re going to get surgical, but I need you to understand the subtle sounds of the orphan that is causing you to forfeit your destiny. You will forfeit more territory than the devil will ever steal and it’s in these subtle places of the shadows, in the margins where you don’t believe God.

So the second response, God says this and then it says, “Then Moses said to God,” second round, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” Here’s what I think his response is saying is the second response of the orphan is, “How will I look?” He wasn’t concerned how they saw God, he was looking out for himself. “What if they don’t believe me? What if they don’t like me?” He’s so looking out for himself. Here’s what orphans do. Orphans are always looking out for themselves because they can never be sure if anyone else is. Orphans are obsessed with how they look. What we do is projection. We project, we think everybody sees us the way we see ourselves. We project, I’ve got the worst image possible of how I see myself and I think that’s your starting point. How many of you are projectors? Oh, I am such a projector. My biggest fear in life is this, my wife would think about me what I feel about myself. Because if one thing, if I think it, it’s another thing that she felt it. If she thought I were a failure, it’d be over. Why would I tell her something that I struggled with? That’s the enemy, that’s the voice of the orphan because love covers, but orphans always cover it up.

Here’s what I want to teach you, the gift of self-awareness, but I need you to teach you from the seed of the son, not the orphan. Self-aware from the son or the daughter. God, how do you see me? That’s self-aware. It is recognizing that I’ve got a father who sees me correct the way I see myself. I am self-aware. How do you see me? Oh, that was wrong, I shouldn’t have said that. But the orphan, “Oh, you’re wrong, you’re just an idiot.” One is an identity, one is a behavior. You need to understand that God always validates the identity. Self-aware, self-conscious. Here’s how I think everybody else sees me and here’s how I see myself. Most of you are self-conscious and you’re calling it self-aware, but the orphan spirit will always make you feel self-conscious. But the spirit of a son or a daughter, no, no, no, it’ll make you self-aware. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that. God, I’m sorry, please forgive me,” versus, “Oh, you’re a horrible person.” God is gracious, he’s continuing this conversation because he wants to bring Moses along with this journey. He’s not just giving him a one and done. Some of you feel like God’s one and done with me. He gave you that chance, I’m on to the next. That’s not our God, that’s not what I just see displayed in the scriptures. I see a God who’s in the conversation, who’s with you, who’s walking alongside of you. Yes, you bring him 99 excuses, he’s going to keep coming to you 100 times.

So the conversation continues in verse 18. Is this helping anybody? Thank you. Verse 8 of chapter 4, then the Lord said, look how gracious God is. He’s putting up with all of his excuses, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’d be like, “On with enough already,” but God is so gracious. He says, “If they don’t believe you and pay attention to the first sign, they will maybe believe the second. But if they don’t believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile, pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.” Now Moses says, verse 10, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I’ve never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since I’ve spoken to your servant. I am slow in speech and tongue.” Here’s the sound of the orphan there. It’s like, “I’m not enough.” Here’s what scarcity does in our lives and rejection does. It starts with, “I don’t have enough.” It moves on to, “I’m not good enough.” Then eventually it stands in the place of, “I’ll never be enough.” We grew up really poor, like free government cheese poor as a kid. So that mindset of an orphan who had no money, I might be able to buy new clothes right now, but I still feel like a third grader eating a cheese sandwich. I remember we were so poor when I would go to the gas station, I would only put $2 worth of gas in at a time because that’s all I could afford. I remember in college, I got a credit card. Don’t do that, don’t give your kid a credit card. I remember using my credit card for the very first time. I go to the gas station, I’m like, “I’m putting $10 worth of gas in this car. I am living large today, 10 bucks in the car, baby.” I run the card and I’m staring at the thing. I’ve been waiting my whole life to say, “Not approved,” in every area of my life. Because the reality is, it wasn’t my fear that my dad didn’t love me. The deepest fear is I wasn’t worth loving. When that orphan spirit drowns you into the ground and beats you up, it makes you feel like you’re not even worth loving because I’m not good enough.

God still doesn’t give up on him. “Moses, you’re my boy. Moses, I got you. I picked you not because you’re eloquent, not because you’re good, because you’re mine. I picked you because I’m sovereign and you’re mine. If I were looking for eloquence, I would have passed by you long ago. But the way God picks is not what you and I use.” So God comes to him another time and he said, God says this in verse 11, he says, “The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths?'” God is like stepping up the game. “Who gave their mouths? Who made them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, I will help you speak and teach you what to say.” God’s like, “I got all your excuses covered.” Verse 13, Moses says, “Pardon your servant, Lord, please send someone else.” I think the fifth sound of the orphan spirit, the orphan heart is, “I’m going to fail.” Some of you will always play it safe because you never want to fail. Because the reality is, when you live life as an orphan, it’s one thing between failing and a whole other thing to be a failure. That’s what the orphan spirit does. Outside of Christ, we would close the book and we’d be done with the sermon because that’s all that’s available as orphan spirits. But the story does not end there because we serve a great God and there’s a whole other side of the sermon and I’m about to preach. I’m about to show you the God that we serve. I’m about to bring the God who loves you into your life. Some of you so identify and I get the moments of silence because I’m getting really close because the orphan spirit is an equal opportunity employer. Doesn’t matter race, age, it’s going to try to enslave every single one of you.

Here’s the scripture I want to speak over you. It’s in Romans chapter 8 verses 14 to 17. This is the good news of the Gospel here. It says, “For those who are led by the spirit of God are the children of God.” Oh, this makes me happy just reading this. “The spirit you receive does not make you slave so that you live in fear again.” You see what he’s speaking there? Because the orphan spirit is what happens outside of Jesus. It can still be what you go to in Jesus because it makes you a slave and it’s driven by fear. That’s the orphan spirit, that’s the old spirit, that’s the one that died but he keeps popping his head back up. That’s how you were, but this is not who you have to be. He says, “So that you live in fear, but the spirit, rather the spirit you receive brought about your adoption to sonship. By him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” That is good news. That means that all who have received the Holy Spirit have been adopted and we have the right to become children of God, not because of your performance. Because the orphan spirit is always trying to prove itself through the performance. “If I could just do a little bit better, if I could say it a little bit more articulate, maybe, just maybe, I’d get picked.” That’s not what it means to be adopted as son or daughter of the most high God because he says you’re adopted into sonship. We do a lot of ship in church: fellowship, discipleship, leadership, but it all starts with sonship. That’s the foundation for everything you’ll build on is that. I love the scripture that you’ve been adopted as sons and daughters of the most high God and it means that you are co-heir. Here’s what that scripture really means. It means you got access and you got inheritance. You mean I am a co-heir with Jesus? You mean I got all the access Jesus has? I have? You mean all the rights and benefits that Jesus got, I got? Yes, that’s the good news, son or daughter of the most high God. You have that access and you have that inheritance. That’s for all of us who have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We’ve been forgiven of our sins, we’ve been adopted as sons and daughters of the most high God.

Here’s what I realize is when I, as a pastor and anybody who wants to lead, when I’m driven by the orphan spirit, I will build an orphanage and not a church. Here’s the reality, I wish I could say I have perfected this. A week ago, I get on my son so hard and it’s completely me speaking from an orphan spirit and I so hurt him. I had to go to afterward say, “Man, I’m so sorry, buddy, forgive me for that.” I’m still in process, I’m still in motion. That little orphan Annie pops her head up really often in my life. But what I have through the person of Jesus is the ability to take that thought captive, make it obedient to him and how do I want to operate. So I had to ask my son for forgiveness. I’m still working on it. But for those of us who call Elevation Church home, here’s why you love this church so much. Because Pastor Steven’s been my pastor for 20 years, but he’s more than my pastor, he’s my spiritual father. He’s the one that made me feel seen and known and he made me feel like I was home. He made me feel like I belonged. For all of you that call Elevation Church home, aren’t you glad that we’ve got a pastor who’s a father who’s creating a house where you don’t have to prove yourself in this place? Oh my goodness.

But I want to take a second to say, how do you see God? How do you see him? Do you picture him with a furrowed brow, arms crossed, waiting in disappointment, judging every one of your decisions based upon what’s the image you see? Is it a face filled with kindness or is it a distant God who isn’t personal to you? Because you’ll never feel like you’re a son when your father is distant. So when we use the term Abba Father, it’s only used three times in the New Testament. It’s the most tender term of God. It means father, it means dad, it means intimacy, it means he’s close and it means he loves you and it means he’s in this thing with you. How do you picture God? Because I cannot see myself as a son if I have a bad picture of my father. Oh, I got to start with how do I see God? I want to go to a familiar passage, but I want to frame it through a way of helping you learn how to see God differently. It’s going to be the story of the Prodigal Son. Some of you, you’ve heard it so many times, cool, that’s fine. I want to go through it in this way. I want you to see God a little bit different.

Here’s the review of the story. You got two sons in this story, the Prodigal Son. It’s out of Luke chapter 15. The younger son is like, “Dad, I wish you were dead because if you were dead, then I could have your inheritance. I don’t want to wait till you’re dead, so how about you give it to me now so I can go enjoy it.” Here’s the reality, God is good and sometimes you’ll be asking God for what you want, but it’s not what you need. Some of the worst things that happened in your life is you got what you wanted. He got what he wanted and he went to Vegas and he got naked and crazy. It’s in the passage. He goes off and he squanders this living in wild living, squanders it and he wakes up in a pig pen one day. Now remember, this is the son who rejected his father. This is a good dad, but he woke up in a pig pen and he starts rehearsing his orphan speech. “I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your hired slaves.” Give me that Romans 8:15 passage again. He said, “The spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again.” Here’s a son who was loved by his father because of his decisions. He woke up in a pig pen, he said, “I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your hired slaves.” He starts out in this journey to come back to his father.

Here’s what I would want to speak over some of you today. You did not come to church, you’re coming home to the father. You are created in the image of God. There’s an indelible mark that’s been left on you and though you were in a pig pen, there’s something that says, “I’m created for more than this.” That’s the Holy Spirit prompting you, calling you back to your father. That’s the God that we serve. Even in his lowest moment, he knew that if I could just get back to my dad, I’m not worthy to be called your son, but just if I can get there. He sets out in this journey, walking this walk of shame, hands in his pocket, shuffling his feet, head down, shoulders slumped, the posture of an orphan who doesn’t feel good enough to be picked. In the passage, the father, he always knew his son would come back home. He says when he saw him at a distance, his heart was filled with compassion, not contempt, not condemnation, not criticism. You need to know that Abba Father, his heart is compassionate towards you. He sees you and what did that compassion do? It made him run to his son. The son just moved towards the dad and the dad came running to him. That’s Abba Father. If you just turn to him, if you just look towards him and move, he will come running towards you. That’s Abba Father. What’s the look on the dad’s face? It’s tears because he was broken that his son had to walk through that. The son starts giving his orphan speech, “Dad, I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me…” He just said, “Let’s give him a name. Let’s call him Paul.” Little Paul, he would walk around the house when he was a little boy, he’d play with all of his daddy’s things because he knew he was his dad’s son, Paul. Paul went to the pig pen. Paul woke up one day and said, “I need to go back to my father.” Now the father at a distance sees his Paul. You see, sometimes we don’t make God personal. He’s so personal, he knows your name, Paul. That’s my baby boy. His heart was broken that his son had to experience that rejection and he runs to him and he meets him. The son starts giving him a speech, he’s like, “Shh.” It’s like, “My son who is dead is alive again.” Then he puts a… See, here’s the thing, because co-heir means you’ve got access and you’ve got inheritance. In that culture, when the son disrespected his father like that, he would have never been allowed to come back into his father’s presence. That’s what religion always does. It says based upon your behavior and your performance, you’re no longer worthy, so go get right and then you can come back into his presence. That’s religion, that’s not of God, that’s not the God that we serve. Because the town’s elders would never have allowed that son to come back into his father’s presence again. They would have met that boy on the road, taken him behind the woodshed and beaten him because that’s what his performance deserved. Why is the father running to get to the son? One, because his heart is filled with compassion and two, is he needed to get there before the mob because, “No, no, you’ve got unlimited access, access to me because you’re my son, not because of what you did, not because of who you know, but you are my son. This son of mine who is dead is alive again.” Then he says, “Put a robe on him,” says inheritance, because that’s your kingship, his inheritance. “Put a ring on his finger,” it’s the authority. You never lost the authority, it’s always been yours all along. Then what’s amazing is he put sandals on his feet. Do you know what the difference between a slave and a son was? Slaves didn’t wear shoes, sons did. He’s reestablishing his sonship that he never lost. Abba Father, his heart is filled with compassion and he came running to him.

But as I was studying for this, I became fascinated because there’s this other son. He was out working on the back 40, he shows up because they’re going to have a party. The dad’s like, “Hey, kill the fatted calf, throw the brisket on the Traeger, let’s eat, let’s go.” So the son shows up and he starts smelling the aroma of meat and he hears the party and he’s like, “What’s going on?” They told him, “Your son or your brother, he’s back.” Look how the son responded, the other son. So you got Paul the prodigal, this is Patrick, I’m going to call him Patrick the prideful. Luke 15:20, it says, “The older brother became angry and he refused to go in. The father went out and pleaded with him.” Look at the position, the posture of the father. He goes to him, he goes to both sons. One was a prodigal who smelled like last night and the other one who’s been working for a reward that was not his father’s relationship. I wonder how many of us think that God owes us something. He was angry, refused to go in, so the father went out and he pleaded with him. But he answered his father, “Look, all these years I’ve been slaving.” You mean the son who was in the house sees himself as an orphan too because he was working for the reward, not the relationship. You got two orphans in this home. “I’ve never disobeyed you. You never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours,” he’s not even claiming him as his brother, “this son of yours, when this son of yours squandered your property with prostitutes, comes home, you kill a fatted calf for him.” “My son,” the father said, “you will always be with me,” access, “and everything I have is yours,” inheritance. “But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours is dead, is alive again. He was lost and is found.” So in my Bible, I changed the label of that passage. It’s the Prodigal Son, the Prideful Son, and Abba Father.

How do you see God? A God who’s filled with compassion and kindness or a God who’s got a scorecard just marking down the mistakes you make? How do you see God? This whole thing is created because we have access to God through Jesus Christ. What you need to understand is when Jesus was on the cross, God had to abandon his son in that moment because the wrath that was intended for you and me needed to be laid on his son Jesus. So in that moment, his son felt rejected and he was abandoned. Jesus was orphaned on the cross and Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The greatest pain on the cross was not the nails, it was the separation from the father and it felt like rejection. What we need to understand is we’ve got a savior who has been tempted in every way with you are as I am. He is one who has been orphaned and he knows what it feels like to be separated. But three days later, the father looks back towards the son and he feels his pleasure and he rises in victory. That’s the God that we serve. We have access because of the finished work of Jesus.

But Jesus was preparing his disciples for the cross. He knew his assignment. They didn’t take his life, he gave it up. He knew the assignment. He was preparing them for when he would go to the cross. It says this in John 14:16, it says, “And I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you,” because he’s preparing for them when they’re going to feel like they’re going to be rejected and they’re going to be orphaned because the one that they had put all of their allegiance to for three years is now going to leave and they didn’t get it. But Jesus says, “I’ve already prepared for that moment where you’re going to feel orphaned. I’ve asked the father and he’s going to send an advocate, the Holy Spirit, to help you and be with you forever.” Verse 17, “The spirit of truth, the world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he lives in you and will be in you.” Verse 18 says, “I will not leave you as orphans.” Jesus knew that you and I will go through seasons where we will feel orphaned, where we will feel separated, but he sent the Holy Spirit, the helper, the guide, the paraclete, the one to come and live inside of you. Because of that spirit, it gives us the right to cry out, “Abba Father,” because we’ve been adopted as sons and daughters of the most high God. That’s the God that we serve.

As I was preparing for this sermon, I kept going back to that place of, “I just wanted to be with my dad.” The deepest cries of my heart were, “I just want to be with you. I’m coming with.” But then I read the words of David who penned this as a boy out of Psalm 139:7. He says, “But where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” Verse 8, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” The deepest cry of my heart was to just be with my father, “I’m coming with.” But in my heavenly father, I found a God who says, “I’m coming with you. If you go to the mountaintops, I’m coming with you. If you make your bed in the depths, I’m coming with you. I’m not intimidated by your shame, I’m not put off by your mistakes. I’m a God who’s coming with. I’m coming with you.” Stand to your feet at all of our locations.

The way to be adopted as a son or daughter of the most high God is through confessing that you’re a sinner, believing in your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and confessing that he died and rose again. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus, if you’ve never been made a new creation, this is why God brought you here. He wants to forgive you of all of your sins, he wants to redeem you and he wants to make you a son and a daughter. What I want to speak over some of you men, I’m not your father, but I’m a father and I would want you to hear from your heavenly father’s voice, he’s proud of you. You’ve been waiting your whole life to hear those words, he’s proud of you, not what you did, he’s proud of who you are. That’s the God that we serve. Some of you have been keeping God at a distance because you feel like religion, “I need to clean myself up before I come to him.” That’s the reason he died, is because you couldn’t do it. Maybe, just maybe, this is the moment that God is breaking through all of that shame, all of that guilt that has made you stand at a distance and you keep defining yourself by your lowest moments, but God sees you according to your highest potential and he loves you and he brought this opportunity for you to be forgiven.

Would you bow your heads, close your eyes, nobody moving, this is a holy moment. This is where sons and daughters are coming back to God. If you have never placed your faith in him, if you’ve never been forgiven of your sins, we are going to say a prayer together out loud for the benefit of somebody who’s making this decision for the first time or coming back to him. Pray with me out loud, church family. “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died on the cross and rose from the grave to forgive me of my sin. I give you my life, I give you my sin, I give you my shame, forgive me and I’ll spend my life following you.” With your heads bowed and your eyes still closed, I’m going to count to three and when I get there, without hesitation, I need you to boldly shoot your hand in the air declaring you are trusting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. On the count of three, one, two, three, shoot your hand up. Come on, all across this auditorium, all across our auditoriums, come on, let’s celebrate that church family, let’s celebrate that church family.

Thanks for joining us today. We pray that God has spoken to you in a unique and powerful way through the message. Well, we are in our year-end offering season as a church where we get the opportunity to reflect back on all the ways that God has been faithful to our ministry this year, but also to look ahead at what we’re believing God for in the upcoming year. Each year as a church, we get to come around a special offering, an offering that contributes to both outreach efforts in local and global cities as well as the expansion of our ministry, continuing to reach people all over with the hope of the gospel. We’d invite you to take part and participate in our year-end offering. To do so, you can go to elevationchurch.org, just click the banner there at the top and then you’ll be able to see everything that you need to be a part of our year-end offering. You’ll see two options. The first is to begin tithing. Maybe you’ve been wanting to prioritize God in your finances but you haven’t taken that step to make a commitment to doing so. This is a great place to begin. Or perhaps you’ve been giving consistently, in this season God may be challenging you to stretch above and beyond the tithe to give a sacrificial gift to our year-end offering. If you’re part of one of our physical locations, you can choose your campus there or if you’re part of our online ministry, of course, you’ll choose EAM or online and then enter the amount that you’d like to give. We are believing for all the ways that God is going to stretch our faith in this season through our year-end offering and we can’t wait to see what God does through you. God bless and we’ll see you soon.