Doing All the Right Things for the Wrong Reasons | Prodigal Son Week Two | Pastor Ty Hayes

In Week 2 of our Prodigal Sons series, we take a deeper look at the older brother in Jesus’ story from Luke 15 and uncover a powerful warning about religion without relationship. While the younger brother ran away in rebellion, the older brother stayed close to home but missed the heart of the Father. This message explores how it’s possible to do all the right things and still not truly know God. Discover the difference between living by religious obligation and living in a genuine relationship with the Father. If you’ve ever struggled with comparison, resentment, or feeling like you have to earn God’s love, this message will challenge you to move beyond religion and into the heart of God.

Transcript

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If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Luke chapter 15. And let me just say this: I got a lot of things to say and not as many minutes to say them. So we're going to get into it right away. Before I do, let me just mention real quick again yellow connection card, fill it out. It is a great way to get connected to find out more about the church for us to pray and serve you. And if you're running a pyramid scheme, I'm just saying one of us pastors is going to text you. So it's a good way to get your business going. With that said, Luke chapter 15, we're going to be in verse 25. Last week we started a series on the younger son, talking about the prodigals. Today we're going to talk about the older son. And let me just say this this is going to be a little different for those of you that grew up in church. I think most of us that group in church, when we hear the story of the prodigal son, we think it's all about this younger brother, this younger son. But really, this verse, this story, this text is actually written for the older brother. It's not written for those that are out these doors. It's written for us and here. And Jesus is asking us a very specific question: are we going to get our life right with him? And that's not about showing up a church more. It's not about following the rules more. It's about having a transformed life. So with that said, Luke 15, starting in verse 25, it says, Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house. Let me just say this to the other dads. When you get home from work and you hear music and dancing, that's a little concerning. Come on. And he asked one of the servants, What was going on? Your brother is back, he was told, and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return. The older brother was angry and wouldn't go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, All these years I've slaved for you, and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet then this son of yours comes home after squandering your money on prostitutes. You celebrate by killing the fattened calf. This father said to him, Look, dear son, you have always died by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has now come back to life. He was lost, but now is found. Let's pray. God, right now I thank you for who you are. That God, we wouldn't be pulled to the left or the right. We wouldn't be distracted by what's around us. God, we would be fully devoted to you. That God, we'd follow you all the days of our life, and we'd leave here more like Jesus today. In your name I pray, and everyone said, Amen. How many of you guys have got an opportunity to meet Pastor Kyle? Anybody here? Is he not awesome? Like, do we love Pastor Kyle or what? That's right. That's what I like to hear. That's what I like to hear. No, Pastor Kyle's awesome. He was my Bible college roommate. We've known each other almost going on 15 years now. And one of the things about knowing each other for 15 years is we've got some war stories. And by war stories, I mean he's a competitive, ambitious guy, and I'm a competitive, ambitious guy. And both of us are very good winners. We're not sore losers. I'm just kidding. We are very sore losers, very terrible winners. And there's this one night we're all sitting in, uh, we lived in this house together with like 12 other guys, and we're all sitting there playing a board game. It was called Munchkin, and we're laying down cards. And man, I lay down this last card and I am about to win. And you know, because I'm a humble Breggar, I decided I should stand up and say, in case you guys hadn't noticed, I am a winner and you are a loser. I am best and you are worst. I am smart and you're dumb. You know, all the things. And Pastor Kyle looks at me and he smiles and he's like, actually, you did not win. And he's like, I laid this one card down three turns ago. And he begins to dig through this discard pile. And here's what you need to know. I was instantly furious. What do you mean you won and I didn't? And man, we like it got out of hand. I won't even give you guys all the details, but let's just say that's not the first nor the last time that me and Pastor Kyle have got into arguments because we are very competitive people. Keeping score when you're playing games, when you're doing sports is fun. But can I tell you when it's to do with relationships, relationships with your spouse, your kids, your friends, let alone Jesus Himself, man, keeping score gets dangerous really fast. Today I want to talk to you about not keeping score in your faith. Because when we begin to keep score, we begin to become more of a moral person than we do a believer. What does that mean? That we start paying attention to how good we are, how good or not good other people are, and we think that God owes us something because of our good behavior. Because I want to convince you today that I that you want to become a believer in Jesus, not just a moral person. If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. This is my only note of the day. You can be religious and still miss the heart of God. Let me say that again. You can be religious and still miss the heart of God. The younger son, last week we talked about he ran away. He squandered everything, he messed up his dad's life. But this older son's a little different. The younger son ran from God. This older brother, he's the kind of guy that'd be at church every single week, and yet he's still as far from God as the younger. Last week we focused on rebellion. Today I want to focus on religion. And can I tell you this message is a lot harder because rebellion is easy. Rebellion looks like being lost. Rebellion is dirty, it's messy, it's broke, it's addicted, it's it's strung out. Religion looks respectable. They dress nice, they talk nice, they act nice, they seem like they're doing all the right things because they are, but yet they're missing the heart of God. It begins by talking about this party. This older son had been working in the fields all day, the Bible tells us. And when he returns home, he hears music, he hears celebration, he hears dancing, and he begins to ask questions like, What is happening? He pulls one of his servants, one of the co-workers aside and says, Hey, what's going on? And the servant begins to tell him, Your brother has come home. Now, I don't know about you, but if I had heard my brother, who I hadn't seen in years, who was lost, came home, I'd be excited. But that's not how this brother responds. It says, instead of joy, he is angry. When the Bible mentions this anger, it's not talking about an anger like I'm frustrated. It's like an anger like he is boiling over, he is frustrated, he is enraged, and he refuses to go into the house. Can I tell you the danger of self-righteousness is that often produces anger instead of joy in our life? When this lost brother returns, the father begins to celebrate, but the elder brother begins to get more and more furious. Why? Because often grace displayed by God offends us in our self-righteousness. If your entire relationship with God is based off your performance, your good works, the things you're doing or not doing, comparing yourself to others, then grace feels unfair. When you sit there and say, God, I've always been faithful, God, I'm always doing the right things, God, they're always dropping the ball, and yet somehow they're blessed, you're answering their prayers, you're saving their family, you begin to get upset. See, grace, it sounds amazing until it's given to someone you don't think deserves it. The father, he leaves the party with his son and he begins to walk out. And it says he goes up to this older brother and he pleads with him, he begs him and invites him in. He pursues his son and says, Please come in. What we don't see obviously in the text is that both both sons, both brothers are lost in their own way. One is very obvious, one is far, one is guilty, one is is is is easy to blame, but the other one is close and yet still far. The older son begins to reveal his heart even more by saying things like, I served you, I never disobeyed you, not even a single time, but you've never given me a party. Now, what does that sound like? Me, me, me, me, me. Selfishness. See, this is not a son speaking to a father. He's speaking like an employee who's keeping score. He's not saying, Dad, what's going on? He's saying, I've worked harder than anyone else. I've broken my back for you. I always do whatever you require, and you've never done anything for me. He then goes on to reveal himself more by saying, This son of yours. Notice he doesn't say, my brother. Notice he doesn't say our family. He says, This son of yours. He's creating distance in his language, he's building a wall even with his language because he refuses to call him brother. Can I tell you self-righteousness often separates us? Pride begins to isolate us. When we think we're better than others, we begin to remove ourselves. And religion, which is simply church without Jesus, religion hardens our heart. Self-righteousness separates people, it separates this son from his father, it separates people from the family of God, and it removes the joy of grace. See, the son has a servant mentality, an employee mentality rather than a son mentality. The elder brother says, All these years I've been slaving for you. He identifies himself not as his son, not as his father, but as a slave. Notice though, the father never treats his son like a servant. He never down talks him. He never treats him as a transactional relationship. The problem isn't the father. The problem is how the son identifies and sees himself. I wonder how many times we do the same thing. Or when we come into church, we don't we don't look at God as our gracious father. We look at him as someone that has a checklist for us to do, as someone that just wants us to do better, to make sure we're doing all the right things, avoiding all the wrong things. I remember as a kid, I'd hear things like, Don't uh, was it don't smoke, drink, or chew, or date any girls that do. Many of us think that's what it means to be a Christian, but we're missing it. See, religion often turns relationship simply into transaction. When you forget you're a son, when you forget you're a daughter of God, you start living like a slave. I have these uh work gloves that I got about a year ago from the gas station. There's work being done. Come on, look at that. It's good. And man, these whenever I put on these gloves and I get to work, it always reminds me of my family. Now, uh, my family visited a couple weeks ago. Some of you got to meet them, and that's all awesome. My family's like very blue-collar and very proud. My dad and his side of the family, my mom and her side of the family, even my in-laws, uh, all hard workers, all put in a lot of time. In fact, they they think the fact that I'm a pastor is like the funniest thing in the world. Um, I remember calling my dad like a few weeks ago and we're talking on the phone. He's like, What's up? And I'm like, I'm tired. And he's like, Oh, is your little office job hard, big guy? And I was like, Thank you. I'm the first person in my family not only to graduate from college, but go to college. You might think that's exciting, but most of my family thinks that's funny. Like they're like, college is a scam. Like I come from a very hard-working family. I love it, I'm proud of it. I like working hard. I'm glad that my family works hard. But there's kind of a weird tinge to it. I'm not what you would call a relaxer. Like when we go on vacation as a family, my wife gets stressed out because her idea of vacation is let's just chill on the beach all day and you know, eat snacks and relax and sleep in and go to bed early and all the things. And I'm like, we have an itinerary to keep. Like, come on, we got to see all the sights, do all the hikes, do all the things. Like, I have a hard time relaxing. And so a couple weeks ago, when my parents were in town, we're all sitting on the couch, we're all talking. People get on their phone, there's a movie on, and in about 10, 15 minutes, I noticed that me and my dad are about the same where we both kind of perk up and we're like, okay, we've been sitting for too long. Like, what are we gonna go do? My dad gets up and he looks at me and he's like, hey, what can I do? And I think in the back of my mind, oh man, I have this honeydew list that my wife's been giving me for years, and I hand it over to my dad, and man, he does all of it. I loved it. It's like this is great. Working hard is awesome. Here's where it becomes an issue. When you get home and somehow you can't get out of the work mentality, and you're sitting with your family at the table, and everything is still all about work, not about relationship. And man, you know where that affects us often the most is with our church family. Man, I love that we do all the right things. I love that our church is generous with our giving. I love that we're passionate and are serving, that we love to give our life away for Jesus. Those are all amazing things. But if we're doing that because we have our work gloves on, we have our employment mentality, then we are missing it. Can I tell you, I don't expect my boss to treat me like he's my dad, but I also really don't want my dad to treat me like he's my boss. And if we don't learn to separate the two, even when it comes to our faith, then we will miss it, and all of our relationships will suffer, our relationship with God will suffer, and ultimately our faith will begin to suffer. See, what we don't understand is there's more than one way to be lost. Last week we talked about the younger brother being lost in self-indulgence, but this week we're talking about this older brother who's lost in self-righteousness. One ran from the father, but the other tried to control the father. Both were distant from God, whether emotionally, relationally, or physically. Because what we need to understand is sin is not just breaking God's rules, sin is also putting yourself in the place of God. You guys still with me this morning? You guys are real quiet out there. Come on. See, what we need to embrace as quickly as we can is religion can often hide the rebellion in our heart. You can attend church, you can serve, you can give, you can follow all the rules, and still have this heart that believes God owes me something. That's not surrender, that's control. That's trying to treat God like a genie, that if I just do all the right things, say all the right things, that God will take care of it all. I love my wife very, very much. And can I tell you, me and my wife would not have a good relationship if I only did good things for her because I expected something in return. On the way here, uh, she pulls in, and there was something wrong with the car seat for our little daughter Eden. And I I grab Eden out of her car seat and we're walking in, and I look at my wife and be like, you know, if I was keeping score, I'd be winning right now. Now that's a joke. Mostly I want her to hear that. That was a joke. But sadly, it illustrates a reality for many people that our relationship with our family, with our kids, with our spouse, with our friends, even with our God can sometimes look like that. God, why aren't you answering my prayers? I did all that you asked. God, why am I going through this? I did all the right things. And we somehow feel like God owes us, like we have some transactional relationship. Another reason self-righteousness becomes very, very dangerous is rebellion feels sinful. It's very obvious. People that are in rebellion, broken in sin, you don't have to tell them. They know. When they're struggling with addiction and brokenness and feeling separated from people, they identify with that. But self-righteousness often feels justified. We feel like we deserve something and others don't. And rebels, they know they need God's grace, they know they've messed up. But religious people often miss that they need God's grace too. See, grace often offended offends us because we become entitled. We often think that grace is just for prodigals, just for people far from God. But can I tell you, grace is also to attack and confront our pharasitic heart at times? That grace isn't isn't just about freeing people from the wrong that they've done, but grace is to remind us that we're not that great either. That just because we think we've done more good than them, or we've lived better lives than them, or we dress better than them, our families are put more together than theirs, doesn't mean we don't need God's grace just like they do. Again, we look at the real audience of this passage, going back to verse one. It says that Jesus is talking to both sinners, people far from God, but there's also this religious crowd that are with him. And it says Jesus loves hanging out with these sinners, he's telling them the stories of the Bible, he's preaching at them, and they're coming to get saved, and it's causing these church people, these religious people to get upset. And we read these stories and we think that Jesus must be talking to these sinners. He must be going after them to get saved, get saved, get saved. But that's not how the story ends. See, this story ends unresolved. You can go back to the passage. Jesus doesn't actually finish the story because the question isn't, is the younger son going to return? He's already returned. The question isn't, are sinners gonna get saved? They're already being saved. The question that leaves hanging is, are we going to go inside and celebrate? See, this story isn't for those far from God. Those the story isn't from those outside the church. The story is for us. Are we willing to celebrate and be excited when those that have done us wrong, when those that have cost us something, come to know Jesus? Because think about this. This older brother, this isn't just some Joe Schmo that's being celebrated. This is his younger brother that took his dad's stuff, that ran off, that left the older brother in charge, responsible. This older brother is doing all that he can to get his dad and his family back in a good spot. And he's looking at his younger brother coming back, being celebrated and thinking, what is going on? You know, grace sounds great when it's reaching someone far from Jesus over there, but what does grace look like when it reaches your worst enemy? What does grace look like when it transforms the life of those that have done you wrong? What does grace look like when it's God blessing and answering the prayers of someone who's done you dirty? Because the real question of this passage isn't are people gonna get saved? It's what are we going to do when they do? See, a person who refuses to see their own sin will never understand grace. So I have a couple signs of older brother syndrome. One, resenting grace given to others. When God forgives, when God blesses others. Secondly, judging people who struggle. You see people that are broken, that are struggling in their sin, and you judge. Next, comparing your holiness to other people's holiness. Well, I've done more good works than you, will I pray longer than you? Will I give more than you? Next, thinking God owes you something. God, I've done all that you've asked. What are you gonna do for me? Struggling to celebrate restoration when you watch someone fall. Are you happy to see them lifted back up? And lastly, trying to control the outcomes, thinking if I just do this, then God will have to do things my way. See, God is throwing a party. Lost people are coming home, the addicts are being forgiven, the broken families are being brought back, the hurting people are being restored, messy people are coming into the church, and God is throwing a party. And I want to ask you, are you gonna come in? Are you going to celebrate, or are you just criticizing who's on the guest list? The father begins to speak to his son and he looks at him and says, All that I have is yours. Notice this the older brother is not losing a thing. When God blesses other people, it's not costing you a thing. But he goes from there and says, This celebration is not optional. The father says, We have to celebrate. Not I want to, not it seems like a good idea, not maybe we should think about this. We have to celebrate. He's saying that this is necessary, that we have to do it. Why? Because God's salvation, God's grace should always produce some sort of joy in us. When we see God doing something in someone's life, we should be excited, we should be happy, we should be celebratory. Grace must be celebrated because lost sons coming home matters more than our pride, more than our wrongdoings, more than us being comfortable. See, the gospel is always inviting us. It's the same father who waited for the younger brother, standing out here with the older brother, inviting him in, pleading with him, welcoming him, not condemning him. Because I want you guys to understand grace is for rebels, it's true, but grace is also for rule keepers. Grace isn't just for the broken. Grace is for those that seem like they have it altogether. Because grace is for everyone. An interesting part of this story in the Jewish culture, the father was not allowed to go pursue children that were in wrongdoing. That would be embarrassing for the father. It would look tacky, it would look bad. And for them, everything was about perception. And so the father culturally was not allowed to chase after his son. Often in this culture, the duty would fall upon the older sibling. Anybody hear an oldest sibling? It would fall upon you to go and make things right between the parent and the younger siblings. And so not only is this older brother frustrated, but this dad is talking to the very person that should have made things right, who should have gone after his younger brother. It sounds like he knew from the story where his brother was the whole time. He had this job. God gave him this job. The father gave him this job to go pursue. And here's what I want you to understand. In 1 Corinthians, it says this and all of us, and for all of us, is a gift from God who brought back to himself, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sin against them. He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. Catch this, verse 20. So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. Do you hear this? That Jesus is saying his plan of reaching the people out there to reach your friends, your families, your neighbors, people from God is you. Is you going to them saying, please come back. When's the last time you've chased someone down saying, please come back to know Jesus? It's easy to think that's Pastor Ty's job. Post a funny video, post a graphic, do something on Facebook. God has called each and every one of us to reach those that are far from him, invite them to come home. You can look around even right now, and you'll see empty chairs maybe next to you, in front of you, behind you, somewhere in this room next to you, you'll see an empty chair. And here's what breaks my heart is as easy to say, oh yeah, it's an empty chair. Each one of these empty chairs represents someone that should be in this room, that should be hearing the message of Jesus that is not. You know what keeps me up at night? Is I sit there and I think, God, am I am I doing a good job as a pastor? And I worry because every moment that I'm, you know, trying to figure stuff out or doing things, I think of people that don't know Jesus that are going to hell. And I don't want to be weird and I don't want to scare people, but hell is a real place. It's a reality for those that are far from Jesus, that don't accept him before they die. And I don't want that for anyone that I come across. I want everyone that I get a chance to minister, to preach to to know Jesus. And here's what scares me about this passage is man, it'd be easy for us to say, Oh yeah, Pastor, like that's for that's for that guy down the road. Like he needs to know you. Jesus is telling the story to religious church people, saying, Please come to know me. What he's trying to highlight for us this morning is that you can be in this room, you can hear these messages, you can sing these songs, you can give and you can serve, and still not be any closer to Jesus. I want you to, each and every one of us, to check our heart today. See, do you obey God to get God or do you obey him because you want him to give you something? Do you love Jesus, or do you just love what he might give you, how you might use him? Because religion without relationship produce produces duty without delight, you do it, but you don't love it. Obedience without joy, you do it, but you don't love it, and morality without love, which makes us harsh and critical. In my time in church and in my time of knowing Jesus, man, I've come across a lot of people that seem to love church a lot more than they love Jesus. And they get very religious and they're very impressive with their knowledge of the Bible and how worked up they get and the good works that they do. And it's it's it's amazing. But you can just, in your interactions with them, to say, man, you don't really love people. It's easy to tell. Man, you don't really seem to actually love God. It's easy to tell. And it's so easy for us to fall in love with church and not fall in love with Jesus. I remember many of you met Pastor Jeremy, my old youth pastor, that spoke here a couple of weeks ago. I remember 14, 15 years old going to youth group with him. And man, he would preach. And man, we didn't we didn't have a youth group that messed around. He would preach for over an hour, and I'm like 15 years old. I'm like, man, you got to calm down. Like, what are you doing? And he'd preach these heavy messages, and he would go hard, and there would be hundreds of us in that youth group. And man, we we love the worship and we love the preaching, and we we would be all about it. And here's what worries me is I talked to Pastor Jeremy a few weeks ago. We're on a trip and we're talking about people we know, and maybe a handful of us still follow Jesus. We can get so worked up being religious, loving the things, doing the right things, but miss the heart of God. And can I tell you that eventually you're just gonna burn out, walk away, and be further from Jesus than ever before? That's not what I want for us today. So here's your response moment. If pride has hardened your heart, lay it down. If religion has replaced relationship with God, it's time to come inside the house. And if you've been standing outside judging, it's time to join the party. Because the father begins to reframe this situation. See, the father begins to even talk to his older son differently than he's being talking to. The older brother says, This son of yours, he's not my brother. I've no reconciliation with him, no relationship with him. He is your son. But the father replies to him, This brother of yours. See, the father restores family identity between these two brothers. Sin always divides us. If we're lost in sin, we get divided over the silliest things. Man, can I tell you, like, I'm just Tony, can I go for it? You up here with me? We're gonna go for it. Let me tell you some of the silly things. I'm gonna take that as a yes. Cool. Let me tell you some of the silly things when we are in sin that break us apart. We break up over social class, how much money people make. We break up over race. Can I tell you how much melatonin is in your skin? That's ridiculous. We break up over where you're from or what you who you used to be. Sin always divides us, but grace is called to restore us. And when the father restores our heart, it's not even just about our relationship with him, it's about our relationship with each other. And so if you stand in this room and you say, Well, I love God, but people not so much, that's not possible. I believe in Jesus, I read my Bible, but I ain't going to church. That's not possible. Your relationship with the Father will always change your relationship with your brother, with the people, with the family of God around you. See, the question isn't whether the father will let you in. The question is, will you come in when he invites you? The music is playing, the table is set, the father's standing there inviting you, and the door is wide open. The question is, will you come inside? I have this iPhone in my pocket. I used it up until just a few months ago. It's an iPhone 10. I've had it longer than I've been married. It's wild. And I've noticed over the last couple of years that this phone is just getting slower and slower and not working the way that I want it to or it's supposed to. And man, I've tried different things. This is like the 20th, you know, screen protector that I put on it over the years. This is like the fifth case. I'm hard on my phones. I've done all the software updates. I've tried apps, I've tried deleting things, I've done everything to this phone to make it work better. And just over time, it gets slower and slower and works less and less. And Pastor Kyle's a good friend. So when he moved here a few months ago, he's like, hey, good news. I have this iPhone 14, which is gonna be new to you. And man, I grab this phone, I put my information in it, and instantly it just starts working good, it starts working fast, it starts doing all the things that it should be doing. Now, why am I telling you this? Why am I showing you this? Many of us, we live our life like an old phone. We try to do all the right things, we change the outside, we try to do some good things on the inside, we're trying to make ourselves better so that we can produce more, so that we can be used by God more, so that God might do stuff for us more. And Jesus calls it old wineskins. We try to do all the right things without a changed heart, and we're sitting there slower, broken more than ever before. When what the answer really is, what God wants to do is change you from the inside out. He doesn't want a better you, he wants a brand new you. And so what he's asking of you today isn't to just simply do better things, isn't simply to try harder. He's asking, are you willing to have your life changed this morning? So let me end by asking this question. Am I changed or am I just trying harder? Are you changed or are you just trying harder? If I could have everyone bow their heads and close their eyes, I just want to talk to you and ask you two different questions. I got a younger brother and an older brother question for you today. Maybe, firstly, you're here and you've been at church a few times, or maybe you're new to church and you you tried other things and you're ready to come back home and you're ready to follow Jesus. I want to give you that opportunity today. I'm gonna count down from three on three. If you want to follow Jesus, I want you to raise your hand because I want to pray with you. I want to see you so I can connect with you, and I want to help you follow Jesus for the rest of your life. One, if that's you, I want to remind you of this. This is the most important question of your entire life. Your relationship with God is more important than who you're married to, where you work, where you live. Your relationship with Jesus is everything. Two, maybe you're thinking that you have plenty of time. You'll get it right later, you'll figure it out later. I'll come again some other time. Can I tell you? We don't know how much time we have. I had a little brother, he was 18 years old, died in a car accident tragically like that. Never knew Jesus. We don't know how much time we have. Don't wait. Can I tell you all the best parts of my life are now better because I know Jesus. All the hard parts of my life now have purpose because I know Jesus. Three, if that's you and you want to follow Jesus today, would you raise your hand? I want to pray with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Church, would you just repeat this prayer after me and say, Dear Jesus, thank you for forgiving me, for saving me, for loving me, give me boldness, give me power. Help me to follow you all the days of my life. Your name I pray. Amen. Older brothers, I want to talk to you for just a second. Maybe you've been here, and man, you love church, you love your Bible, you love doing all the right things, doing all the right songs, you love the culture. You're doing all these good and right things, but man, your heart has not been transformed. You have bad relationships with those around you. You have a transactional relationship with Jesus, and you're ready to give that up and come inside the party. You're ready to embrace God's grace and not make it about how much you do or don't do, not doing the right things and avoiding the bad things, but you're ready to just have a relationship with your father. But you need some help. You want me to pray for you this morning. If that's you, would you just raise your hand? I'd love to pray with you. God, right now, you see these hands and you know these lives. God, I can't think of a harder thing to struggle with than this. To feel good, to be quote unquote good, but to be far from you. God, humble us today. God, remind us of our need for you. Remind us of God, our shortcomings. God, allow us to free ourselves from an identity of an employee that has to work harder. But God, remind us that we are loved now by you as much as we can be loved. There's nothing we can do to make you love us more. There's nothing we can do to get you to pour out more. But God, you love us as much as you will ever love us. God, help us to embrace that identity. As a son, as a daughter, we love you and we thank you. And everyone said this morning.