WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.000 The authorities who monitor the television ratings claim that more people watch the soaps than any other programs. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:22.000 It may be that the Queen's Speech on Christmas Day or a World Cup final gets more in a one-off watch, 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:31.000 but regularly, week by week, annually, the soaps head the top of the list things. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:41.000 And if you were to have a look through any of the newspapers last week to look at the television programs that were there, 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:45.000 there's a very clear clue as to why that is. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.000 Coronation Street, one of the most popular, we were going to watch if you did watch it. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:58.000 Emma Quizz's Amy, Jade takes hope to A&E and Ryan throws Ray out. 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:04.000 In EastEnders, Karen tells Gary about Chantel. Patrick ignores Denise and Jack. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:10.000 In Neighbours, Kyle faces losing Amy for good in Harlow Clashes with Paul. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:18.000 And in Emmerdale, Jay catches Al in the act and Leila's attraction to Liam grows. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:27.000 These programs are all about people or more particularly the relationships that people have. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:36.000 And of course, that fascinates us because for us, relationships are hugely important. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:42.000 You could maybe say the most important aspect of your life. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:49.000 We've just spent Christmas and New Year holidays, many of us with our families and those we love. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:02:00.000 And it's brilliant because relationships have the capacity to give us the greatest joy and happiness. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:09.000 But of course, they also, they can also bring us great pain and distress and hurt. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:14.000 And Jesus knew that, knew that relationships are important. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:24.000 And so many of his parables, his stories deal with relationships, the one we read about the father with the two sons. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:35.000 And the other stories about the widow who comes, you know, and she won't give up pleading with the judge until he hears her case. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:43.000 You've the husband man who treats his workers in a strange way. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:03:00.000 There's lots of relationships there and that shouldn't surprise us because our relationship with God as we start this year is the most important thing there is about us. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:14.000 And as we think about this parable that Jesus told about this younger son who takes the money from his father and he goes and he was it and then he comes back when times are hard. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:20.000 We see a picture, a picture of our relationship with God. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:30.000 First of all, and if this was a drama or a play in the theater, there'd be three acts to it, wouldn't there? They're very clear. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:36.000 At the beginning of the story, we see a relationship ruined. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:44.000 We picture the situation. A young man brought up in a home where his father provides for him, not just materially well, 00:03:44.000 --> 00:04:01.000 but provides set standards and teaches him values, wants to instill a good character in his son and the idea of helping other people, sharing what blessings you've been given. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:09.000 But the son doesn't really see it that way. He sees none of this. He becomes resentful. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:17.000 You know, the father saying, you've got to do this and you mustn't do that and you need to think of other people. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:25.000 And so he dreams, you know, he fantasizes that life would be better if he was somewhere else. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:35.000 And he begins to think, you know, if I could just live without my father's eye watching over me all the time, 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:46.000 if I could just live without restraints, without limitations, if I could do what I want, if I was free, you know, not having the fear of my father knowing what I was up to. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:54.000 If I was fear of all these conventions that, you know, life seems to surround me with and all its limitations. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:05:01.000 And the more he dreams, the more it becomes appealing to him that he should get away. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:13.000 I just want for a while he thinks to himself, you know, if I could just, if I could just for a while, you know, be away and, you know, it would help me to mature. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:27.000 I would learn a lot of things about the world and, you know, didn't somebody say after all, you know, you've got to risk the boys to become the man. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:39.000 And the more he thinks about this and the more he dreams about it and the more appealing it becomes, it hardens into a conviction that this is something that he has to do and he must have. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:51.000 And so we read there, you know, he's not thinking about his father, he's not thinking about his brother, he's not thinking about responsibilities, he's thinking just about himself. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:57.000 And of course that is what selfishness does. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:12.000 My wife and I have a friend, a good friend, a teacher and we've heard so many times the story of how he met his wife and it gets a bit tiring after a while. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:27.000 He loves to tell it, how he was invited to a party and he, you know, was shown into a room crowded with people by the host and across the room he sees this beautiful woman. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:33.000 And as he tells it, you know, everything around her grew dim. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:42.000 There was only her, a bit cheesy as the way he tells it, but that's what selfishness does. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.000 Everybody else goes, nobody else matters, you don't see anybody else. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:07:01.000 And so inevitably it seems he goes to his father and he asks for his portion of the farm, the possessions, the belongings, give me. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:09.000 That's what he said, the motto of selfish people in every generation and every society and every culture. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:19.000 And the thing is Jewish law, Jewish tradition had it that a man didn't, the way we would think of, own things. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:25.000 He really was just a steward and there was a way that he had to hand on his possessions to his family. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:31.000 Unfortunately the girls didn't count and they didn't get anything. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:37.000 Some folks say that the older son got half and the rest was divided between the other boys. 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.000 Some say it was two thirds, but whatever. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:48.000 This young lad knows that, you know, he is money coming and he gets it. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:56.000 And off he goes to a far country, ruins his relationship with his father. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:02.000 And you know Jesus sums up the consequence, just six little words, what happens to him? 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:10.000 He squanders his money in reckless living, riotous living. 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:15.000 And it says he began to be in want. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:21.000 You know, after the money's gone he began to be in want. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:27.000 Far from home, penniless, friendless, hopeless. 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:36.000 He's ruined the one relationship of substance that he probably had in all of his life. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:43.000 But if that's the first act, the second act still concentrates on this young man. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:51.000 He's the one in the spotlight because we see his relationship recognized. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:56.000 Verse 17 it says, he came to himself. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000 His dreams were shattered. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:01.000 His fantasy life disappeared. 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.000 His plans and the world was broken. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:08.000 There is always a morning after. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:12.000 There are always consequences to our actions. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:21.000 And this young man found as countless others have found and will continue to find while the world exists, 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:25.000 the high cost of low living. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:30.000 I know that for those of you who are Christians this morning, there will be folk. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:35.000 Maybe where you work or where you live, maybe even in your own family. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:44.000 You know, who rather sneer at the standards God has set and that you try to achieve in your life. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:47.000 And they push those away. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:49.000 But you only have to look around you. 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:57.000 You don't have to go any further than Edinburgh to see after the Christmas festivities and the New Year festivities, 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:07.000 Hulmanay festivities I should say, and you only have to see the wreckage that people have made of many of them, 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:09.000 of the whole of their lives. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:14.000 There is a high cost to selfish and low living. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:21.000 And it's not difficult to imagine that young man sitting there thinking, you know, 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:27.000 I've satisfied my appetite, I go what I wanted. 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:29.000 You know, I got that money. 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:36.000 And would he have remembered that it was actually his father who gave him, who made it possible for him to live like that. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:39.000 And he satisfied his appetites. 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:40.000 He lived for pleasure. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:41.000 He partied. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000 He didn't have to work. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:45.000 He sold his wild oats. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:47.000 He was his own boss. 00:10:47.000 --> 00:11:02.000 And how foolish that must seem to him now, being his own boss, having been sent by a man into the fields to feed pigs. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:06.000 Some years ago, a father and son in New Zealand wrote a book. 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:07.000 They were Christian men. 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:11.000 They wrote a book called Why Did No One Tell Me? 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:16.000 And the subtext of it was that life can be ruined in youth. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:18.000 The father was a Presbyterian minister. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.000 The son was a medical doctor. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:30.000 And they've been sharing that the really, the sad folk who were coming to them, who had ruined their lives when they were young, 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.000 by living in selfish ways and for pleasure. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:41.000 And we all feel, you know, we would absolutely love to be able to warn people, young people especially, 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:50.000 but others as well, that living just for yourself, that has terrible, terrible consequences. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:53.000 It'd be great if we could just do that. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.000 And I hope you'll forgive a story from Northern Ireland. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:09.000 In the very early days of the Troubles, a Roman Catholic teaching nun was a pointed head mistress of a Sink School in West Belfast. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:16.000 It was West Belfast was one of the most socially deprived areas in the whole of Western Europe. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:23.000 You know, still thousands of homes with outside toilets and it was just a pawline place. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:27.000 And there was a big Roman Catholic girl school, St. Louise's. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:33.000 And this teaching nun, Sister Genevieve, was a pointed head. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.000 And she set about transforming it. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:41.000 The girls all left at 16, none of them had any qualifications. 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:46.000 But she set about instilling discipline and standards and whatever. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:49.000 She got rid of the time serving teachers. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:58.000 She brought in teachers who were energetic and she got a uniform, got a local factory to make cheap uniforms. 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:04.000 She pushed and pushed and eventually, you know, they did GCSEs, they did A-levels. 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:14.000 Some of them got to university, but in the early days, she had appointed another nun as a teacher, young woman. 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:23.000 And in her appraisal, this nun said she was really enjoying teaching, but she just kept being embarrassed. 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:28.000 She had a fourth form girls class, you know, 14, 15 year old girls. 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:33.000 If you have any idea what they're like when they get together, they're ghastly. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:38.000 They're, you know, like hezbollah, they are just awful. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:45.000 And they kept embarrassing this young nun by asking her to teach them the facts of life. 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:48.000 So Sister Genevieve said, oh, right, okay. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:50.000 And of course they knew they were embarrassing her. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.000 She said, well, that's okay. When's your next class? 00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:02.000 So she came down and one of the girls who was in the class said she came in and she said, I understand you want to know the facts of life. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.000 Well, here's the facts of life. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:13.000 If you don't get your head down and study and pass exams, get to college and university and have a career. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:23.000 You'll leave here at 16, you'll be pregnant at 17, you'll marry a feckless man who'll drink and gamble away any money you earn, 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:27.000 and you'll be old long before your time. 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:32.000 Now, those are the only facts of life you need to know. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.000 Get your head down and study. 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:42.000 Now, when I read that, I just think wouldn't it be brilliant if we could tell everybody out there in the world? 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:44.000 But of course, people don't. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:54.000 Sometimes it takes a long time for the penny to drop that the living God who loves us and cares for us really, 00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:03.000 is not putting restraints or limitations on us for no good reason. 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:06.000 It is because he loves us. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:10.000 But anyway, this young man, his thinking changed. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:16.000 He realized that his thinking was muddled and that he'd made bad choices. 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:18.000 He was driven by selfish motives. 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:22.000 And I think we have to give him a little bit of credit, don't we? 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:33.000 It can't be easy if you've chosen to live independently, to then come back and admit that you've been wrong. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:39.000 And at least he didn't blame other people. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:43.000 He didn't blame his friends who disappeared once his money was gone. 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:48.000 He didn't blame his boss for sending him out to feed pigs and not giving him a better job. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:50.000 He didn't blame the family. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:52.000 He didn't do any of that. 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:55.000 He realized it was his fault. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.000 I've sinned. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:04.000 And having realized and admitted this, he sets off for home. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:13.000 So this is the final act of this bit of the parable whenever the father comes into view. 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:17.000 But the first bit we read, I beg your pardon, 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:21.000 he has a little speech prepared. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:26.000 And of course it only takes one person to ruin our relationship, 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:30.000 but it takes two to renew it. 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.000 So the father comes into the picture and we see him. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.000 He's obviously been waiting. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:42.000 He's obviously been watching, praying, you know, wondering, where is my son? 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:43.000 What is he doing? 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.000 Will he ever come back? 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.000 If he does, what will he be like? 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.000 How will it be? 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:53.000 And verse 20 says, 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:59.000 While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:03.000 I'm sure many of you have favorite verses in the Bible, 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000 but isn't that a brilliant verse? 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.000 Didn't that, you know, while he was yet a great way off. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.000 It doesn't matter how far away you are from God. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:17.000 While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Probably not a day when the father hadn't prayed for him, you know, hadn't wondered. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:26.000 But anyway, here he is, the lost son. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:31.000 And he says, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:35.000 I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:36.000 But that's all he says. 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.000 It's all the father lets him say. 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.000 He doesn't get the rest of his little speech out. 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:46.000 The father embraces him and forgives him and restores him. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:52.000 And he calls the servants because it says he had compassion on him. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:54.000 His heart went out to him. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:01.000 So he doesn't bring him back to judge him and say, well, now, didn't I tell you this is what would happen? 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:04.000 And, you know, you've made your bed, so you're going to have to lie on it. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:07.000 He didn't bring him back to put him on a pillow and stoo. 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:10.000 He brought him back and restored him. 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:16.000 And the significance of what he asked the servants to do, bring a robe. 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:19.000 That signifies honour. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.000 You know, bring a ring. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.000 That signifies authority. 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:24.000 Bring shoes. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:26.000 That signifies sonship. 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:31.000 It's as if all that had happened hadn't happened at all. 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:35.000 It's just totally forgotten, totally done away with. 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:41.000 He's restored to the position that he had been in before. 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:46.000 And, you know, this story begins with a father giving. 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:51.000 And this bit of it ends with a father forgiving. 00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:59.000 He's concerned only that the relationship has been renewed. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:11.000 As the new year begins, this story from the Son of God, from Jesus, is surely a reminder to us all 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:19.000 that the most important thing in our lives ought to be our relationship with God. 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:23.000 Because it's the best relationship we can ever have. 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:28.000 You know, whenever people ask, you know, they see the mess and the chaos of the world and they say, 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:30.000 what's it all about this life? 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.000 What's it all about? 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:38.000 Our catechism has the best answer because it's from the Bible. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.000 Man's chief end. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:46.000 Our lives should be to glorify God and enjoy him forever. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:56.000 And we do that by having and cultivating and sustaining a personal relationship with him. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:00.000 The television program, Panorama, claims to be a window on the world. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:08.000 You know, and it shows you the world war and peace and wealth and poverty and joy and sadness. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:13.000 The Bible does the same, but the Bible goes deeper. 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:18.000 It goes beneath surface appearances, outward views of things. 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:28.000 It goes to the heart and it tells us that each of us, every one of us, whoever we are, whatever we've been, 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:35.000 no matter who we are, we are by nature rebels against God. 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:38.000 We've done what that young man did to his father. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:41.000 We've done that to God. 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:49.000 Now, we can, of course, be rebels in different ways. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:53.000 Think of two. We could be respectable rebels. 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:58.000 You know how vice is wrong done against a person. 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:02.000 Crime is wrong done against the state. 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:06.000 Sin is wrong done against God. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:11.000 If you're a respectable rebel, you don't do vice. You don't hurt other people. 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:14.000 You know, you don't abuse them in any way. 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:17.000 If you're a respectable rebel, you don't do crime. 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.000 You know, you don't break into homes and burgle them. 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:23.000 You don't steal cars. You don't break the law of the land. 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:25.000 You know, you're a good person. 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:27.000 You know, you behave well. 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.000 You pay your taxes. You give the charity. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:32.000 Come to church. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:37.000 You live outwardly in all the ways you behave in all the ways that, you know, 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:40.000 the Bible says Christians ought to behave. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.000 Your family, your neighbors. 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:45.000 Think you're a good person because you are a good person. 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:47.000 Best of a citizen. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:53.000 But the problem is because God has never been Lord of your life. 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:58.000 You're what C.S. Lewis calls a semi-believer. 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:02.000 Some of you will know the name Bono. 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:04.000 He's a lead singer of U2. 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 That wonderful Irish pop group. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:13.000 He's made millions of pounds. 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:15.000 And he's given millions away to charity. 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:17.000 He's a very generous man. 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:19.000 But he said on one occasion, he said, 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.000 I wish I could live up to the idea of Christianity. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:25.000 It's like I'm a fan. 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.000 I'm just not actually in the band. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.000 You know, there are a lot of folk like that. 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:35.000 They sit kind of, a C.S. Lewis, 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:38.000 it's like semi-detached from God. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:42.000 He has a bit, you know, they do some bits, 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:45.000 but they don't really do it. 00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:50.000 The famous Baptist preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, said about such people. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.000 He said they would allow a God, but he must not be king. 00:22:54.000 --> 00:23:00.000 Now, we read the parable of the Pharisee and the public, 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.000 and the second of the two readings there, 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.000 because that's a brilliant illustration. 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:12.000 The Pharisee, you see, compers himself with other people. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.000 And comparing himself with other people, you know, 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:18.000 we could do that, couldn't we? 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:20.000 I mean, I could do that. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:22.000 I could compare myself, you know, if I was, 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:25.000 I'd say, wow, you know, I don't beat my wife, you know, 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.000 I don't get drunk and fight with people. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 I don't, you know, I don't steal from folk, you know. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000 I'm a pretty good citizen. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:43.000 But the publican, he compared himself with God's standards. 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:47.000 And if I compare myself with God's standards, 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:55.000 I know that I'm sinful and unworthy of his love and his care. 00:23:55.000 --> 00:24:01.000 You don't have to live riotously to be a rebel against God. 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:04.000 You just have to be one of those people 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:11.000 who's never actually gone home and confessed to being a sinner. 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:14.000 But of course, you could be an obvious sinner, 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:17.000 you know, like the young man in this story. 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:20.000 You could make it clear you don't want anything to do with God, 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.000 his standards, his values, the way of it, you know, church. 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:29.000 Well, it's boring, it's colorless, it's shallow, it's for kill joys. 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:34.000 Rather follow the trends and the fashions of the world. 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:41.000 Despite, despite the number of testimonies that doing that, 00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:47.000 like this young man, you know, leads to disaster. 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:53.000 The George Kipling, the English poet, talked about people who, you know, do that. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:55.000 They follow the trends and the fashions. 00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:01.000 He said, you know, they're seeking after the noise that men call fame. 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:06.000 The dross they think is gold. 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:10.000 The tennis player Boris Becker, when he was at the height of his fame, 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.000 wrote that, you know, he had homes on three continents. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:18.000 He had more money than he knew what to do with at that time. 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.000 He had women all clamouring for his company. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:28.000 But he said, I was empty inside. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.000 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian dissident. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:36.000 After he had lived for a while here in the West and surveyed religion. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:40.000 He's awarded a great prize for progress in religion. 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:46.000 And his conclusion at the end of it all, when he surveyed all that was going on in the world. 00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:52.000 He said, I am unable to find anything more accurate or precise 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:59.000 than the words I heard as a child from my grandparents. 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:07.000 This is all happened because the people have forgotten God. 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:14.000 As this new year begins, whoever you are, whatever your past has been, 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:19.000 respectable or not, God, the living God, 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:30.000 longs to have a personal, genuine, growing relationship with you. 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:32.000 And he's waiting. 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:38.000 He's waiting for you to come from that far country, wherever it has been. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:43.000 Because when we live without him, we ruin our relationship with him. 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:50.000 The penny needs to drop and we need to come to ourselves and understand that. 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:53.000 And then we need to come back to him. 00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:59.000 And he's waiting to rescue you, me, everyone, everyone. 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:04.000 He's waiting to embrace and forgive and restore, 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:07.000 as the Father did with that young man. 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:12.000 He's waiting to hear you say, Father, 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:16.000 I have sinned against heaven and before you, 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:20.000 and I'm not worthy to be your son. 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:21.000 He wants to hear that. 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:26.000 Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:31.000 Let's pray. 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.000 Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:41.000 and for all that it teaches us of your love and your own feeling grace. 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:44.000 And we pray that as this new year begins, 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:53.000 we would make you the great object of our affection and our love. 00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:01.000 And our Father, we just pray that we all may know what it is to have our sins forgiven, 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:07.000 new life put within our souls, and then to live in peace and joy with you. 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.000 In Jesus' name we ask this. 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:12.000 Amen.