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The Prodigal Son - Part Two

Part Two: Older brother We don’t hear much about the older brother until near the end of the parable.  28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” The Older Brother is Angry Sadly this older brother refuses to join in the celebration that the father is giving for his younger son. He is angry! He is Angry with His Younger Brother.   When this younger brother leaves it means the older brother has
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The Prodigal Son - Part One: The Father

Luke 15:11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.  13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.  17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he g

Creating the Space for God to Move [Inaugural Second Service]

I will not be saying too much tonight. I do want to encourage us with a well known, oft quoted text. Isaiah 54: 1-3: “Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord. 2  “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. 3  For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. This is one of the most famous verses in the Bible, usually associated with building projects. But there is something here for us. When Isaiah prophecies this the children of Israel were captives in Babylon. The circumstances were not ideal. It comes directly after the prophecy of the suffering servant, about Jesus on Isaiah 53. Things were not going well for them. They felt barren, suppressed,