Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Home: A Father’s Day Sermon with Pastor Ryan Braley
"Does anybody really love me?" It's a question that echoes in the depths of our hearts. For those who grew up without a father—or with complicated father relationships—this question carries extra weight, especially on Father's Day.
Growing up without my father after years of family turmoil, I discovered that love and approval became synonymous. I built what psychologists call a "false self"—a constructed identity designed to win acceptance and love. This false self isn't unique to those with father wounds; we all create personas to protect our vulnerabilities and ensure our survival. Whether it's through achievement, humor, intelligence, physical appearance, or spiritual performance, we present versions of ourselves we think are worthy of love.
The parable of the two sons in Luke 15 brilliantly illustrates this human tendency. The younger son rejected his father's love, believing he needed to create his own value through possessions and experiences. Meanwhile, the older son remained physically home but emotionally distant, viewing himself as a slave rather than a son. Despite their different paths, both were trying to earn what was already freely given—their father's unconditional love.
When my son was born and rushed to the NICU, I instinctively placed my hand on his tiny chest and whispered, "I love you, I'm so proud of you." In that moment, I heard God whisper back, "This is how I've always felt about you." This revelation transformed my understanding of God's fatherly love—a love that doesn't need to be earned or achieved.
The invitation this Father's Day is to recognize that your true self isn't something you create—it's who you already are in God's love, waiting to be received. You don't need to keep striving. God's embrace is ready for you, not because you've earned it, but simply because you are His beloved child. What would change if you truly believed you're already home?
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This morning we pray that, as we gather, as we have gathered and as we unpack these ancient stories, would you give us just a deep sense of your presence? And, yeah, may we feel the embrace of the Father this morning, on this Father's Day, may we understand deeply the Father heart of God, in a way that would deeply transform our lives and all the ways in which we act out of a false self, this constructed projection of ourselves. God, may we let those go and may we feel your embrace in deep ways this morning. In Jesus' name, amen, amen, you can be seated. Good morning everyone. How are we doing? Happy Father's Day. It's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1:My Father's Day sermon is just simply titled Home a Father's Day sermon. I wanted to give you a Father's Day sermon, so we wrapped up our series on rhythms, and one of the best ways to kind of return home or actually wake up to the fact that many of you are already at home is to just engage in these ancient practices of silence and solitude and fasting and prayer and scripture reading. They're just reminders of your belovedness already. But I do want to give a sermon this morning on Father's Day. Can you do me a favor, sam, can you go back to that scripture? This is from the book of Ephesians, and so this is what Paul writes. I love this. This is my prayer for you and myself this morning Ephesians. And so this is what Paul writes. I love this. This is my prayer for you and myself this morning. He writes for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. Interestingly, they call God a father. Of course God doesn't have a gender, but a father in the ancient world was like this generous, giving, sustaining, positive force for good in the world. That's what a father should be, and so they call God a father. That's what God is like, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. Which families on earth? Every family on heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his spirit. I tell my friends, my young I have this Bible study group with these young guys I tell them the spirit is like this enlivening force, like there's electricity in the world. And so may you be strengthened in your inner being with the power through his spirit. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you're being rooted and grounded in love. Thank you, sam. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and the length, and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. You may be filled with all of the fullness of God. Amen.
Speaker 1:We could end right there, but I want to tell you about my own journey, and I want to start on this Father's Day sermon. Are we back to the slides here, sam? There we go. Oh, you're good, oh, hang on, oh, hold on. I want to tell you about my own growing up, my childhood without a father, and I want to tell you this beautiful story of the father in this story in Luke 15, which I love, this story, it's probably my favorite story in all of scripture. Then I want to end by telling you a story of my own life and my son and how becoming a father really changed everything for me. So, again, I want to tell you about my own childhood, growing up without a father, and then the story of this beautiful father in Luke 15. And then, of course, I want to end with my own story of becoming a father. Are you with me so far?
Speaker 1:So I have to begin, of course, with young Ryan, and here's a picture of young Ryan. Just breathe that in that image you might be cool, but are you wearing winter gloves that are four sizes too big inside the house? Cool, that's cool. If you ask me, that giant hat, I don't know what I'm hiding from, but there's my face. It's sort of hard to see, but here's a better image of me. This is me. It's blurry because back then that's how pictures were taken sometimes. This is my sister's Cabbage Patch, not mine. I was bringing it to her. This is my Cabbage Patch figurine, right Ben of the figurines. Yeah, don't play with dolls, it's a figurine. I didn't even want it. I didn't even like it.
Speaker 1:Moving on, here is a picture of about seven-year-old Ryan. We had some property we still do, actually up in Rand Colorado. My dad owns and my birth dad owns this land up in Rand Colorado and we'd go there as kids. We'd go there and'd go camping and hike and fish and do all the things that you did. But this guy, this guy, this seven-year-old Ryan, was awesome, he was dope. I mean, he loved Choose your Own Adventure books. Remember those stories from when you were a kid? Yeah, they were unbelievably profound and mysterious. I love these books.
Speaker 1:He loved Jaws, the movie Jaws and like any red-butted American, we fast-forwarded to and only watched the scenes where somebody was getting eaten. I didn't know there was an actual storyline or plot to the movie until I was an adult. Like Rocky, we'd watch Rocky. We only fast-forwarded to the fight scenes, which is why Rocky IV was so good, because it was only fight scenes and montages, which is like that's all we need. I don't need a storyline. Who cares about that? I love to play army men. Most of them play army men in the bathtub Very manly, that scene, if you can imagine, just playing army men in my bathtub and I loved it.
Speaker 1:But that was about the age, about seven years old, when my parents got divorced and many of you maybe have heard my story, but I haven't told it in a while and I was reminded that a lot of you don't know it, probably because someone asked me about it a couple of weeks ago. Oh yeah, I should probably share that again and it's not a good day to do that, but I grew up and after many years I was about seven or so. Right around this time. I was about seven or so when we left my dad for the final time. We had tried a few times before that. It just didn't work out so well. But after years of violence and abuse and anger and yelling and a messy marriage and sort of trying to blend families, and it was just an absolute disaster. And I was the youngest and so in many ways I suffered, maybe the least, but maybe I just I don't know what it was but yeah, we left him for the final time after seven years of being in that situation and my mom in many ways saved our lives and really she is an incredible saint of a woman and did the best she could.
Speaker 1:But growing up without a father, I of course suffered all the things you would imagine a young boy without a father would suffer, and so it's like I grew up in this sense in every way that I had like this giant hole in my life, you know, this absence of something that was in my life, and as a kid I couldn't really name it or understand. I was 7, 12, even at 16, I couldn't understand it. But as an adult I began to understand what this hole was all about and really the ache of this hole inside of me was this question that lingered and it still lingers sometimes. But the question is this do others really love me? So in many ways I was wandering around as a young boy and as a young man asking this question does anybody really love me?
Speaker 1:I think probably you can resonate a little bit, at least in a way, because I think all of us sort of ask this question. It's an innately human question. Does anybody really love me? Now, mine has a bit extra spice to it because of my wounds from the father and my childhood without a father, and I'm looking longing for this kind of love. But I think we all ask this, and maybe varying degrees. But does anybody really love me? And who is it that loves me? And how do I know they love me? And I would even ask if you dig a bit deeper, you could ask why do they love me? And beneath that is the question of why am I in fact lovable? What makes me lovable? What about me is worthy of being loved or worthy of being accepted?
Speaker 1:Now, for me as a young man, I learned quickly that how I received love was through the approval of others. They were kind of synonymous. For me it's like, oh, if I got the approval of others, it meant they loved me, it felt like I belonged, that I kind of was a part of the club or that I was, you know, worthy of love because they accepted me or because they approved of me. So, you know, you begin to chase approval then, which is, of course, why I indeed had this dope haircut as a young man. Look at that. Oh man, All the great athletes wore two wristbands, not one, two, just in case I had to double fist that you know the sweat was raining down as I was raining down. Threes, I was mostly a defensive specialist. I couldn't shoot that well and I could only go left. But there I am, yeah.
Speaker 1:So for me, when I gained the approval of others, I felt loved and like I belonged, and I was always. I think now, looking back, you can clearly see it. You don't have to be a psychologist to know, but I was constantly looking for the approval, the love of the father that I missed out when I was a young boy, and so I would try to find it in these pseudo ways, in these sort of substitute ways, to get it. And also, it isn't lost on me that here I am an adult who has a job where I get up in front of all of you every week and give this sermon, maybe sort of hoping that you'll approve of my sermon in some ways large or small, and I try to be funny enough or clever enough but also be subtle. So it looks like I'm not working too hard to kind of do this. So years ago I knew this about myself and I'm like I got to figure out a way to like because it was like racking my brain of like whether or not you all would like what I do and like this is terrible because I can't just leave out of here every time like so worried and stressed out about whether I earned your approval or not. So I came up with a ritual in my life. I'm like you know what I can't do this every week, where I'm like if you like my sermon, oh, it's so great, I'm a righteous man, if you don't like it, manly and tribal, primal. And so you might notice when I leave.
Speaker 1:After I'm done with my sermons every week, I walk back into the sacristy. You might think where is he going? Is he back there blowing his nose? Yes, that and I do the blowing of his nose, sometimes get a sip of water, but also for a long time. I and I do the boy now sometimes get a sip of water, but also for a long time. I would go back to my office when they were over here and I would get this drum and I would go to my window in my office while you all are in here singing or doing whatever you're doing, and I'd go to the window and I would just offer my sermon up to God and whatever the results would be, they would be whatever they were. I had to let it go and I would just go to, and then I would put it down and I would come back. And I did it because I just had to let go of this idea of like you know, whether or not the sermon was good, based on what you thought of me, because all of us are longing for this deep, you know, in this deep way, for the approval, the acceptance and the embrace of the other. And again, for a variety of reasons Mine, of course, was certainly due to this deep father wound Now, to get my approval or to get approval.
Speaker 1:I began as a young man and I didn't know it then, but I began to behave in certain ways or say certain things, to try to be a little bit extra funny or extra good at sports or extra smart or intelligent, or to dress a certain way or to hang out with certain people, because in doing so I thought, oh well, then I'll earn that acceptance and that love and that security that I've longed for so deeply in my whole life. Now it wasn't like it was malicious. I didn't mean any harm by it. I didn't even know I was doing it. It was sort of just a very natural part of who I was in my life, but it was. I began to build and construct this part of me that I would present, to blend in, in order to kind of survive the tumultuous years that were middle school and all the things that go along with that. I began to construct this part of myself to sort of like earn the approval and the favor and the love of other people and to be noticed and to feel loved.
Speaker 1:Now, mine, this sort of this thing, I built and would show the world this sort of facade or mask, whatever it was. It was rooted in the longing of the love of a father. Maybe yours was something else. Maybe you didn't have the love of a mother. Maybe you had a deep, another deep wound that you experienced when you were younger. Maybe, when you were younger, you felt unsafe. Maybe you felt unseen as a kid. Maybe it was you were unloved or you didn't feel loved, whether you were or not. Maybe you just didn't feel like you were. Maybe for you, you were just vulnerable as a kid, as a child, and you felt lost. Maybe you felt ashamed.
Speaker 1:In reality, many of us have this thing we construct, that we build in order to kind of like protect these wounds that we've had, or many of us had a fine childhood, a decent childhood, and instead of building this sort of this thing that we call the false self out of a wound, you sort of build it just to survive Because, let's face it, middle school is hard. I won't ask you to go back there in your mind, but maybe for many of you you had to be a certain way in order to not get picked on or get bullied, or just to survive. And I mean, adolescence is a difficult time anyway, and here you are with a bunch of other people, so maybe for you, this was how you built your false self. By the way they call us the false self Theologians, psychologists, thinkers, writers. They've used us across fields and across industries. They call it the false self.
Speaker 1:And the false self really is this it's this thing that you and I construct or build to present to the world in order to survive or to be loved. So it's like a mask we wear. Maybe it's a clothes that you wear not literal, but maybe literal, I don't know. This thing you project to the world to show the world what you think is worthy of being loved or accepted, or to survive. Maybe you'd be a tough guy in order to survive in the world. That's what it is to build the false self. Here's a definition of it.
Speaker 1:The false self is who I think I need to be to survive and to be loved. It's this persona, this thing I wear, that I try to be in order to survive and be loved. I think I have to do that in order to receive that. By the way, it's always, always, always based on a fear. It's fear and scarcity and the lack of abundance that sort of causes me to build this false image of myself, because I think no one will love me or believe me or let me belong, unless that's sort of the false self talking there, and so it's always rooted in fear. It's never rooted in love or belonging. It's always the opposite. This is why the Bible says that love real love casts out fear, because these things are mutually exclusive. So yeah, when you're afraid too, by the way, whenever you experience fear, you do crazy things on a micro level, but also the macro level, like look what we're experiencing just in this past week. A lot of this, when you boil it down, is rooted in fear or the false self.
Speaker 1:Maybe you've been at a party and you were like telling a story about yourself and you sort of like make the parts that were kind of good, you make them a little bit better. You don't really tell the whole. Or maybe you leave out certain parts because you just want to tell those things, because I don't know what they would think of those things. You know what I'm saying. Or maybe you're at a cocktail party, or you're at your old reunion with some old friends and you can't wait to drop your new job title or what you're doing with yourself now. Maybe you can drop in your salary too. That might help things out a little bit, depending on what your salary is.
Speaker 1:Maybe if you're like a you know a faith, a person of faith, you want to just let people know that you're a person of faith and kind of how spiritual and how holy you are, because that makes you more lovable in some ways. And so you carry around your Bible or you put it next to your I don't know your dishwasher at home so that your guests can come over and see it. Maybe you post Bible verses online, I don't know. Maybe just to sort of show others how you know how spiritual you are, which means, of course, you're maybe one step above the rest of the fray. Maybe that's not yours.
Speaker 1:Maybe your thing is that you want to just like, sort of and maybe you don't mean to but you have this underlying sort of subterranean I don't know tendency to compare yourself. You're like, oh, they got that, oh, they got that, oh, I'm better than that. And you sort of have like this low grade, like sort of drive to compete, to sort of prove that you're better than they are, because that makes you more lovable or more acceptable in some sort of way. And's your deal, by the way. Maybe it's that you're easily offended. We live in a culture. It's just so easily offended and part of our identity is rooted in being esteemed that I want to be esteemed and respected and liked. And so whenever you say anything that like sort of like puts a ding in my armor, then it like just destroys me because, like it's messing with my identity. And so I get over the top angry or enraged because you're attacking my identity, even though it was not that big of a deal. And so I pick up these tiny offenses and I make a mountain out of a molehill because you're attacking my false self and I can't let you do that because you'll unmask the real me that's just based and rooted in fear. This is, by the way, why we have a hard time admitting we're wrong.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're one of those persons where you just sort of like you don't want to fully admit that you were wrong in any moment. You kind of like dance around it, whether it's in a relationship or in your job or in school, and then you were wrong. You know you were wrong, but you can't even admit it to yourself. Maybe you can't admit it to the person you're with, and so you never say you're sorry, you never admit that was my bad, because it would destroy this image of yourself that you projected to the world. Your ego and this false self would be destroyed.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the answer to the false self. The answer to the false self is not to ignore it or to shun it or to push it away. The answer is, if it's rooted in fear, it's to bring that false self home. Bring it closer, to embrace it and to bring it home. Sometimes that false self will show up and you have to remind it. Hey, I appreciate you. I know that you helped me survive as a young man and I know that you're rooted in this wound that you suffered. But look, I don't need you any longer. I love you. You can come on home and relax and rest. That's the invitation of the Father to these two sons in Luke, chapter 15.
Speaker 1:I love this story. It's about two sons. You probably have heard of it before, but it's one of my favorite stories and it's about these two sons and the Father. And the father, just so you know, is the God character in this story. So everything the father embodies is the God character and is what God is like. And these two knuckleheads. This is us. Here's the story.
Speaker 1:In case you don't know, a man has two sons. The younger one demands his share of the father's inheritance early, which, by the way, is akin to him saying I wish you were dead. He wanted his father to be dead. He his inheritance early, which, by the way, is akin to him saying I wish you were dead. He wanted his father to be dead. He wanted that money, the money that belonged to the whole tribe, the whole village. And so he really it's a middle finger to the father and it's a middle finger to the whole village. He doesn't really care and the father unexpectedly gives it to him. That was really not heard of in the ancient world. You would never have done that. But this father does it. He takes the money.
Speaker 1:The son leaves home, spends it all and returns home later in shame, hoping to be hired as a worker in his dad's business. His father again unexpectedly welcomes him home and embraces him and throws him a homecoming party, fattened calf and all. Now the older brother refuses to join this party, the brother who had been home the whole time. He says it's unfair. He tells his father because he's never even been given a goat so that he and his friends could have a party. The father then says to him my favorite line buddy, you're always with me, everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and he's the younger son.
Speaker 1:He takes the inheritance. He says to the father I don't really care about my relationship with you, I want what's mine, I want the money. I value possessions and money. I want your stuff, I don't really care about you. He rejects his identity as a son. He doesn't really care. He wants the money to take it and go out into foreign places and foreign lands and prove himself, like many young men or young women want to do.
Speaker 1:Because I think deep down inside of him there's a sense in him he's sort of grasping to become some self-made person of value. He's chasing value. If only I can go out there and create my own empire, do my own thing with this money, then I'll be worthwhile and I'll be sort of a force to be reckoned with in the world. And if I can sort of show the world my self-worth and my power and my empire that I build, then I'll prove myself and I'll have sort of won the day. See, he believes that this lie, that many of us believe that I am what I own, or I am what I own or I am what I achieve, or I am what I do, I am what I control. I'll say it again this young man believes what some of us believe, which is, I am what I own or I am what I can achieve, what I do in life and what I control. Yeah, that's what I am. He sort of thinks I must create value in and of myself. Without that I have nothing to offer the world. Me alone, without all these things, is worth nothing.
Speaker 1:Many of you know, but I go about once a year for the last couple of years it's been maybe a few years, but I go on these wilderness experiences every summer and it's a time for me to get away from here and I go and do like five days of like out in the wilderness. We camp and like the middle of three days are totally spent in silence and solitude. But you're with a group of people like usually 20 or 30 people, and I've been in Colorado, michigan, and this summer I'm going up to Victoria, british Columbia, and the first time I went there I was ready to like sit down and do like a mixer on the first meeting and we all sat in a circle under these trees. We're going to do a mixer, get to know each other. And we didn't do that at all. We never went around the circle and said, oh, I'm Ryan, I'm a pastor in Elk River, and you know. And then Tommy's like I'm Tom, I own an ice cream parlor. And well I was like, oh, we're to just be here and not have all these attachments to ourselves.
Speaker 1:Last year it was funny I show up in Colorado and this one guy goes are you Ryan? Oh yeah, he goes. Oh, I Googled you, I figured out you're a pastor in Elk River. I was like, oh man. And I was like immediately bummed Like, oh, this guy, you know, because it's so nice to show up somewhere without all the things that you think bring you value or worth, and just to be yourself. I've had to learn. It's very hard. I've had to learn how to just show up in a group and just be present and just be yourself and not have to be Pastor Ryan or say some wise, sagacious thing to save the day. It's kind of nice to just show up like, hey, I'm just going to be here as myself. And we're not used to that, because we're so used to like, showing up and like, okay, what do I have to offer here? What am I going to offer as a value? What will they accept and embrace of me so I can feel loved and feel like I'm at home again? And these trips you couldn't really do it.
Speaker 1:So this younger son tries this, he creates a brand new self, really out there in the wilderness and out in these foreign lands. And he does it with this idea of freedom and independence and pleasure. And he goes out and spends all this money trying to build this empire and chasing what I would say is like wholeness or acceptance. He's chasing something and he's trying to fill this hole, but all the while he's restless. He's never. He never seems settled. He's spending all kinds of money, he's searching for something. He's never at home. He's never at home.
Speaker 1:And finally he wakes up to this. And he wakes up. It says the text is. He comes to his senses. So he wakes up and he realizes golly, this is not who I am Like. What am I doing out here? This isn't me. And he's humiliated because he's with pigs. He's got no money, he's left with emptiness. He's spent it all on wild living. Nothing's left. He's an embarrassment, a shame to the whole family. And he wakes up. He's like, okay, this isn't who I am, I need to go home. So he comes to his senses to try to go home and the false self you can see it begins to crumble around him Like this isn't who I am, there's something else about me that's not this stuff. And I've chased it all and none of it meant anything. So he goes home. Now here's the thing the false self dies hard. On the way home he still picks up this false self Like hey, look, I'm no longer worthy to be called a son.
Speaker 1:So he rehearses this speech to kind of win himself back into the good graces of the Father, because in the world, love is never unconditional. It's not. Love is always conditional in the world that we live in. Yeah, I will love you if. So we're chasing this thing. That's always conditional. I will only love you if. And he thinks oh, I can't go back home and have free love from the Father because I was an idiot. So I deserve something different than grace and love and mercy. I deserve punishment. I deserve him to demand an apology. I deserve something horrible. Yeah, that's what we've been taught. The world's love is always conditional. The great philosopher love is always conditional.
Speaker 1:The great philosopher, madonna, once said this in Vanity Fair in 1991, my drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. Come on now, that might be some of you in here. That's always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being. All right, good for her, but oh shoot. But then I feel I'm still mediocre and uninteresting. It's like a moment of like absolute confession of Madonna. Unless I do something else, I have to keep earning this thing because it never lasts, this conditional love and acceptance that I've got to keep producing, because even though I've become somebody, I still have to prove that I am somebody.
Speaker 1:Tom Brady, the second greatest quarterback of all time. I couldn't find a John Elbe quote, otherwise we would have had a word from the greatest quarterback of all time. Tom says this he's better looking, fair enough. But Tom says why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? What's he chasing? He kind of recognizes it. I think, god, it's got to be more than this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the world's love is always conditional. I will love you if, by the way, the son what he wants to have going back. He already had it. He was already at home, already loved by the father. He's chasing something he already had. The great david benner says that the false self is trying to steal something from god that you could never steal. I'll say that again.
Speaker 1:David Benner says that the false self is this idea of trying to steal something from God that you already had, that you didn't have to steal. Yeah, the son was already at home, already with the father. So the father sees him, runs to him, doesn't demand an apology, doesn't demand anything, actually does. He demands a robe to be put along the son's back and shoulders and he demands a ring to be put on his finger, demand sandals for his feet. But in the ancient world these are symbols of being a son. It's like the father, like if this was today's culture. It'd be like if that son came home and the father said hey, son, tonight you can use the trigger grill, go ahead, it's yours, I won't even help you, you can use it on your own. Or you know, son, this weekend you can finally use my riding lawnmower the good one, the good one, the one that works. You can use it. Or this, maybe this one like son, you can have full control of the thermostat this weekend. Oh yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Some of you dads are like, oh my gosh, he had a cage over the thermostat with lock coded. Yeah, these are symbols of being a son, like you're a son. Again, he reminds him what he already had and then he's his son. Yeah, I love it. Now the elder brother who's there? He sees this. Now the elder brother's different.
Speaker 1:He stayed home the whole time. He was obedient, he followed the rules, did all the things right, but he's still far from home. And he stayed home, but he's still far from home. See, his false self is rooted in his obedience and doing the right things, duty and following the rules, but ultimately leads also to resentment and comparison and bitterness. And he tells the father hey, all these years I've slaved for you. What he thinks? He's a slave. You can see his own identity. He thinks he's a slave in his own father's house. We just saw that father is nothing like a slave driver.
Speaker 1:He embraced the younger son and this older brother thinks of himself as a slave, not a son. All my life I've slaved for you and thinks of himself as a slave, not a son. All my life I've slaved for you and you never threw me a party with even a goat. By the way, goats in the ancient world and actually today they're not very fatty, they're kind of thin a small meal. You never gave me a goat. He thinks his father's cheap. You never gave me what I was to do. I was obedient. And now you're throwing a party for the younger brother, who's an idiot. Sometimes the older brothers think of the younger brother as an idiot. Sometimes you don't even throw me a party with a goat. Man. Yeah, I want what's mine. I deserve this. I behave in a certain way. You need to give me what's my, just dues, and I'm angry because you're holding out on me. You're shafting me. What's the deal?
Speaker 1:See his self. His sort of false self is that he thinks he's sort of always comparing himself and he thinks he's better than other people, so he deserves certain things because of it. That's his false self. Well, I'm better than them, so I deserve mine. Meanwhile, the whole time there's a party going on in the background. Can you see it that he's invited to, but he won't go in, because joy and resentment can't coexist. Joy and resentment, they cannot coexist, which is why you have folks who are in the middle of some crazy cool party and they feel resentful and they can't engage. They can't receive it, this free gift, because joy and resentment can't coexist. Yeah, yeah, he thinks it's not fair. This older brother. This isn't fair. And the false self? It can obey all the rules. This is how deceitful the false self is. It can obey all the rules but still lack intimacy with the father.
Speaker 1:Both of these sons are lost. They're both far from home, one because of his rebellion, one because of his own self-righteousness. They're both sort of far from home. They both have a false self. They need healing and forgiveness. They need to come home. And the father tells the son I love this line, like, you're always with me, everything I have is yours. We could have tons of parties, it's all yours anyway. The false self tries to steal from God that which there's no need to steal because they already had it. Yeah, this confronts the false self and it reminds him that he's not a slave. You're not a slave, you're a son. You're my son, I love you, everything I have is yours. But the tragedy is the older brother couldn't receive it. He couldn't accept it. And here's why Because we're so used to being taught, or we're so used to this idea that whatever I get as a gift, I must have earned it.
Speaker 1:I can't get something for free. Nothing's for free in this world. Love and grace and parties, they're all things to be earned. So I need to behave in a certain way and then I'll get it. But grace and mercy is an absolute free, unconditional gift. I can't get my head around that. I have no idea what free grace or free mercy or free love, what it looks like, because I'm so used to things being conditional I've never had that before. We have a hard time wrapping our heads around it because I'm so used to thinking I must be good to be loved. What does free grace look like really? What does free love, unconditional love for no reason what does that look like?
Speaker 1:Here's the definition of the false self again, and the true self. The false self is who I think I need to be to survive and to be loved. The true self is who I already am in God's love, waiting to be received. See, as you get older, that false self, you don't need it any longer. You've got to let God heal it and you've got to do that by sometimes when it raises its head, you say, hey, come here. Come here, buddy. You don't have to do that anymore, because the impulse is still there. You don't have to do that it Because the impulse is still there. You don't have to do that. It's okay, we're going to be all right. You're already loved. You don't have to earn anything, you're fine. So you don't reject the false, you just bring it in closer. You love on that little guy.
Speaker 1:My little seven-year-old self wants to show up on occasion and wreak havoc Because he's seven. He doesn't have a license. You're okay, buddy. He's always afraid. It's okay, you'll be fine, it's okay. So you've got to heal that part of yourself that wants to earn things. Now, look, I get it. We often will wander off or we have a hard time receiving these free gifts from God and all. That's very real and this thing we call sin. I think that most of our sin is rooted in this idea of the false self that's already loved. Paul writes it this way while we were yet sinners, christ died for us. Yeah, but you and I oftentimes just need to be reminded of the depth and the breadth and the length of God's love.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna close with a story. My son, logan, was born 21 years ago. He's here today and remember my childhood Like I grew up without a father. So I prayed for a lot of years that I'd be a good father and that my firstborn would be a son. And once Katie told me she was pregnant, I'm like, well, it is, whatever it is, it's either a boy or a girl now. So I stopped praying. But earlier I was pregnant. I'd have a firstborn son as a way to kind of heal sort of the wounds in my own life. That'd be. I thought it'd be like a, you know, a chance to be the father I couldn't be. That I couldn't have in my own life. So we did have a son, but we didn't know it. It was a surprise because we didn't find out ahead of time. And so the I was there. I was there, fully there. It was very hard on me this 18 hours, but I was okay.
Speaker 1:And around the middle of it sometime they put a heart monitor on her belly and were monitoring his heart and they found that his heart rate was in distress. We think what happened was he inhaled this merconium, merconium. He had a bowel movement inside the uterus and then he inhaled it into his lungs, which is toxic and it can kill you. In fact it's killed many, many, many babies. Today's technology makes it slim when that happens, but they're like it's very dangerous.
Speaker 1:And so when he was born, doctors flooded the room and I'm not, something's happening here. And they come in and they deliver. What we're going to do is we're going to deliver him like kind of halfway and suck the merconium out of his lungs and then we'll get him to the NICU right away, because this could be tragic. We won't know for a few days what's going to happen. So the head comes out, they suck out the merconium I'm watching, there's doctors everywhere and they deliver him fully. So I was like I have to announce it. So I yelled it's a boy. Because I was so excited and all the memories of my own childhood were coming back in ways big and small.
Speaker 1:And then they kind of get him over to this machine. I cut the cord, they start doing all the stuff to him to make sure he's stable, and then they wrap him up and they throw him onto Katie's chest for like maybe 20 seconds and they gave him to me for like about 20 more seconds and they rushed him out of there to the NICU and I didn't know what to do because my wife, katie, also had like a bit of a tumultuous birth and it was like she had some problems kind of that they were addressing and Logan goes this way. We hadn't named him yet either. So I was like I don't know where to go. And Katie says go be with him, it's okay, fine. So I and my mom came with me, thankfully, and we run down the hallway to the NICU and they get him in there and there's doctors everywhere and it's very quiet in the NICU and the lights are kind of low and it's very ominous sometimes in there and they're hooking him up to all these machines and I'm standing back there watching and as soon as they all had rushed into there, they all left and he was hooked up. He's stable for now, but we'll see how he progresses, progresses the next few days and then everyone left.
Speaker 1:It was me and my mom, it was quiet and I didn't know what to do. I'd never been a dad before. So she goes, hey, go talk to him. I was like all right, and in my head I'm like what do I say? And in one of the moments I instinctually just got it right, I think, by the grace of God, I walk over to him and I put my hand on his chest. Over to him, and I put my hand on his chest, I said hey, buddy, I love you, I love you. Your dad's here, we're going to be okay. I love you, I'm so proud of you. By the way, I didn't even met him really yet, I didn't even said you know like, I love you so much, I'm proud of you, I love you, we're going to be okay. And I swear to you.
Speaker 1:In that moment I heard God say to me Ryan, this is how I felt about you. I was like, oh, man, and like instantly, all this stuff came washing over me. Like this is how God felt about me and I would tell you today, if God could and I pray that he will he would lean over you right now and put his hand on your chest and say, hey, your dad is here, it's okay, I love you. I love you so much, I love you. I love you as you are, not as you should be. I love you for no reason Unconditionally. I've already embraced you. You are already my son. You are already my daughter.
Speaker 1:Central Lutheran Church. May you know the love of the Father this morning. May it wash over you in the deepest sense of the word, and may it change your life. And may you receive it. This free gift that's like radical in a world that doesn't ever offer anything for free. May you receive it. May it change you from the inside out. May you know that you are already at home. You've already been embraced by the Father. The Father would tell you you are always mine, you've always been mine, everything I have is yours. And may you know in the deepest parts of your souls that you are God's beloved sons and God's
