{"id":31855,"date":"2022-09-10T15:46:40","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/3-ways-to-engage-todays-prodigals\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:46:40","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:46:40","slug":"3-ways-to-engage-todays-prodigals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/3-ways-to-engage-todays-prodigals\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways to Engage Today\u2019s Prodigals"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tegan Mierle photo – Unsplash <\/p>\n

By Tess Schoonhoven<\/em><\/p>\n

A question that often remains unanswered about the story of the prodigal son is, why did the son leave in the first place? What motivated him to leave his father and depart for the sparkly, faraway land?<\/p>\n

But according to Matt Carter, the burning question that the current generation wrestles with today is, Am I missing out on life\u2019s best if I follow Jesus? <\/em><\/p>\n

Carter, pastor of preaching and vision at Austin Stone Community Church, explores this question in his new book, The Long Walk Home<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Long Walk Home<\/em> details the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15, uncovering the reasons people leave the church for hope of a better life outside God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer is that somewhere along the way as he was living there with his father, he\u2019s looking in the city at the faraway land and he thought to himself, You know what? There\u2019s a better life for me, outside of my father\u2019s house<\/em>,\u201d Carter says.<\/p>\n

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He also says there are two groups of people who need to hear the message of the book.<\/p>\n

The first is those who identify with the older brother in the story, the one who stayed home and was faithful.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d Carter says, \u201cat the end of the story we\u2019re not entirely sure if he makes it into the party or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The older brother is a man who needs God\u2019s forgiveness just as much as the younger brother, but doesn\u2019t realize it.<\/p>\n

The second is the person that is hanging by a thread, who does<\/em> realize they need God\u2019s grace but doesn\u2019t think God will take them back after failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the people who have taken the trip to the faraway land,\u201d Carter says. \u201cThey think they\u2019ve fallen so far that God won\u2019t take them back.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the point of the story, explains Carter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what you did; you have a Heavenly Father that\u2019s waiting for you to come home, not to punish you or shame you, but to receive you with open arms. The reason that Jesus told this story, was for people just like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The son in the story essentially told the father he wished he was dead so he could get his inheritance money right away and then he squandered it on loose living.<\/p>\n

He went as far as you can go Carter says. He betrayed his father and sinned heinously.<\/p>\n

But the father welcomed him home with open arms and a party.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for that person that\u2019s hanging on by the thread, this story is for them,\u201d Carter says. \u201cThey cannot out-sin love of God, they can\u2019t out-sin the grace of God. there\u2019s no sin that they\u2019ve ever committed or group of sins that they\u2019ve ever committed that\u2019s more powerful than the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter offers three ways pastors can address the questions of the current generation and proclaim the hope of the gospel to the lost people around them.<\/p>\n

1. Create a safe environment.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Leaders should start with creating an environment in the church through preaching and ministries and counseling where it\u2019s ok to not be ok. The message is not that they should stay in a place of being \u201cnot ok\u201d but rather that it is in fact ok to admit their struggles.<\/p>\n

The wall in the way of this happening more freely, Carter says, is that those people who are respected and put in the public eye are the ones who seem to have it all together.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe heroes that we put forth are the people who look like they have it all together and that they haven\u2019t messed up,\u201d Carter says. \u201cI don\u2019t think we tell enough stories or create enough heroes of the people who are still in the process of \u2018man I\u2019m struggling, but the Lord\u2019s got me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Create a culture of transparency.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Carter says to cultivate an environment of transparency leaders should be open and honest about their struggles\u2014not to glorify sin but to identify with those they lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the guy on the stage but I don\u2019t have it all together and I still struggle and wrestle every day and I need the grace of God every day,\u201d Carter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat healing actually comes when you\u2019re able to admit that you have a problem and then seek help through other people in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaders should invite people into their story, their own prodigal son story, Carter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have it all together, they\u2019re not perfect, they are in need of this gospel just like everybody else. When they\u2019re vulnerable and open and transparent about their own struggles that gives everybody else permission to be open and vulnerable about their struggles and failures and that\u2019s when healing begins to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Rely on the gospel.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe need to get back to a culture in the church where we\u2019re teaching people the gospel,\u201d Carter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to show people that we\u2019ve failed and we are sinners. We can\u2019t just talk about Gods love, but that God\u2019s love is greater than sin, it doesn\u2019t matter what you\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter says leaders who are praying and hoping for the prodigals to come home should not grow weary or give up because if those they are ministering to are truly believers it\u2019s only a matter of time before they begin to turn back toward the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every human being\u2014whether or not they realize it or admit it\u2014there is an eternal longing, and it can only be satisfied through the eternal, which is the Lord,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to satisfy that eternal hunger with the stuff of the world\u2014with power and pleasure, comfort, approval and control\u2014all these different things that we think might satisfy that need inside of us. But the only thing that can satisfy the eternal hunger that God placed in us, according to scripture, is God himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter encourages leaders to never give up, because at the end of the day there\u2019s no greater joy than to see lost sinners come back to Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the one message that\u2019s the greatest story that\u2019s ever been told or could ever be heard and that\u2019s the gospel\u2014that when we were enemies of God and were dead in our trespasses and our sins, God of the universe came and put on our flesh and died on a cross to pay for those sins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaders seeking to reach prodigals should never measure their success by numbers or any other standard, Carter says. Rather, they should measure success by faithfulness to proclaiming the gospel and trusting the Lord with the results.<\/p>\n

TESS SCHOONHOVEN (@TessSchoonhoven)<\/strong> is a former intern with <\/em>Facts & Trends and a recent graduate of California Baptist University.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n
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The Long Walk Home: Discovering the Fullness of Life in the Love of the Father<\/h2>\n

Matt Carter<\/p>\n

FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tegan Mierle photo – Unsplash By Tess Schoonhoven A question that often remains unanswered about the story of the prodigal son is, why did the son leave in the first place? What motivated him to leave his father and depart for the sparkly, faraway land? But according to Matt Carter, the burning question that the … Continue reading “3 Ways to Engage Today\u2019s Prodigals”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}