It’s Time To Come to Yourself
May 18, 2008
Scripture:
Luke 15:1-32 - “11 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ 20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.”
Synopsis:
An identity crisis will send you crashing into “the wall”, a place of confusion and chaos, quicker than anything else. And the only way to recover from a crash into the wall is to come to yourself, snapping out of your confused state and rediscovering your authentic self, which God created you to be. Today’s text is the story of one young man’s search for significance which lead to an encounter with the wall born out of an identity crisis and how he picked up the pieces of his self-worth by returning to his father’s house..
The parable of the prodigal son is the story of a young man, the younger of two sons, who makes the mistake of asking for his inheritance before he’s prepared to handle the responsibility. He was rebelliously ahead of his time and before his season and as a result wasted his blessing, descending into a cursed state. Rebellion always ends in wasted blessing and a cursed state. He like so many of us, found himself in a strange place, with strange people, doing strange things and all because he no longer knew who he was. The thing that saved him from total destruction was the seed of identity planted in him by his father. This seed would only let him go so low. When he hit bottom, the impact jolted him awake and he determined to get up and return to his father’s house.
All of us, in our search for significance, will eventually hit the wall. Some will hit it sooner than others and more times than others but each wall encounter will be different for each individual. Regardless of when and where we crash, the only way to recover from a crash into the wall is to come to ourselves, repent, get up and return to God the Father, who is the ultimate source of our identity. He will forgive and restore us to our rightful place in His house no matter how many times we crash.
