Make Yourself at Home: The House Always Wins

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, if you’re new around here, lemme just say, welcome to Eastside. I’m Virgil Grant. I’m the senior pastor of this wonderful community of faith. We’re so glad that you’re here. We’re finishing up a sermon series that we’ve called:

“Make Yourself At Home.”

Have you not enjoyed the sermon series? Yeah. Come on. Celebrate. Celebrate. Yeah, there we go. And we’re finishing up today with the sermon that we’re calling:

“The House Always Wins.”

The house always wins. Now, I don’t know if you know this or not, but someone has said that gambling is the tax on people who’s bad at math, right? I mean it is the tax for people who’s bad at math because why? Because the house always wins. Now, of course Josh, you know this as well as anyone that when you go gambling that there are opportunities, Josh, for you to win.

Because if there was no opportunity for you to win, you would never go and gamble. And then all of a sudden you hear a story about someone winning. And if you’re like me, I go: “Maybe I should engage in that,” right? And I heard about this guy, his name is Dennis Fierce. And Dennis, he played the lottery in Virginia and he played the same four numbers. And what he did, he would buy 24 $1 tickets and play the same four numbers, all 24 bets. And on this particular occasion, his four numbers they played every single time, was eight, eight, eight, eight. And at the Virginia lottery, the numbers was pulled out. The first number was: eight. Second number: eight. Third number: eight, and the fourth one: eight. And all of a sudden, in a fell swoop, every time that he won, the ticket was worth five grand.

So 24 times five is like $120,000. And so Dennis became rich overnight. Now just play this scenario out. The odds of anyone hitting four numbers is one out of 10,000 chances. So Dennis, he would play the lottery for the next 10,000 days. He has an opportunity at least once by statistics to win the lottery again with his four numbers of eight being pulled out. Now, if he played $24 a day times 10,000 days, how much money is that? $240,000 to win what? $120,000. And you see why the house always wins. And this is what the younger brother comes to realize, is that the house always wins because in the beginning the younger son felt like that he was a slave in his father’s house. He felt like that he was not able to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it.

He felt as if he was a slave in his father’s house. And his only vision that he could ever imagine is how freedom from his father. And the thing that came to his mind was: Viva Las Vegas, right? If I could just get out, if I could just get out on my own, then everything would be good. And he says: “Dad…” he goes to his dad, he says: “…Dad, I wish that you were dead.” Because you understand is when the son asked for his inheritance, this is exactly what he was saying: “Dad, I wish that you were dead.” Because in that day and age, in that eastern culture mindset, is that the way that an inheritance work, is that the older son would get two third of the inheritance. The younger son would get one third of the inheritance. And so when the younger son went to his dad and says: “Dad, I want my inheritance,” he was basically saying: “Dad, I wish that you were dead.”

Now the father did not have to oblige. He did not have to engage with his son’s request, but he does so. Now, what does that mean? That the father is going to give the younger son his inheritance? Well, there was no banks, there’s no money in the checking account because there’s no banks. Everything was tied up in land and with animals. And so for the father to oblige his younger son’s request, meant that he had to sell his livestock and sell the land. Listen to me, the land that probably went all the way back to the original 12 tribes of Israel; it was ancestral land, and the father sold the property, sold the livestock, gave one third of the wealth to his younger son. And what does the younger son do? He heads off to where? To a distant land.

And what does he engage in? He engaged in prodigal living while living. And we come to find out later on that prostitutes are involved, and soon after the younger son has spent all of his inheritance, somebody tell me what takes place at the exact same moment. There’s a famine that takes place, and the Bible says : “No one was there to help him.” Now I just wonder to myself, what happened to all of his friends, that were was hanging out in the bar with him, when the younger son was buying everyone rounds; where were the friends who were snorting the cocaine and doing the drugs when this younger son had exhausted all of his income? The Bible says he was alone. There’s no one there to help him. There’s no one there to give him anything. And then the younger son, because of the famine, because of him spending all of his inheritance, he has to take a job and he takes a job that’s unimaginable for a good Jewish young man.

He takes a job at a pig’s farm. He’s at a pig farm. And what is he doing? He’s slopping the hogs. Has anybody ever slopped the hogs? I have in my lifetime. And it’s no fun because you take a bucket, a five gallon bucket, you just kind of throw all the leftovers in there and then you take that five gallon bucket and you take it to the trough and you just kind of throw it out, and they just start eating it. Well, this is what the younger son was doing. And part of the food, or the slop, was that of some pots from some trees. And these tree pods, a human being could not digest them; but hogs were able to do that. And so the younger son is so hungry, he’s wishing that he could even eat the pods that human beings could not devour, or could not digest.

And he comes to the point in the story, where there’s a turning point, and we find it in Luke 15:17, and read it with me out loud if you will. “When he came to his senses.” I call it, “Come to Jesus” moment. He came to his senses, and how did he come to his senses? He thought about home. And it’s funny to me that he thought about home. He came to his self. He came to his senses. And folks, you understand that you cannot come to yourself by yourself. God wants you to come to yourself through community, through a relationship with the heavenly Father. And so, you know how the story goes. The younger son, he comes to himself, he thinks about home, he says: “You know what? I should head home.”

He practice his speech all the way home. He gets to the house, his shoulders is all slumped over. He imagined that he’s probably going to have to knock or ring the doorbell multiple times. The father’s just kind of “slow playing” this. And he gets to the door, and he begins to ring the doorbell. He does it five times, six times, ten , a dozen different times. And finally, he’s envisioning in his own mind, that his father is going to send out this third or fourth tier slave. And the slave is going to say: “Well, your father doesn’t want to have anything to do with you, and what the father is willing to do is to give you some sleeping quarters out in the barn with the other slaves,” which in reality would’ve been very generous on behalf of the Father. But what does the Bible say? The Bible says: that the father saw his son from a long distance off. And what did the father do? The father ran to him.

You understand that the son ran from the father, but the father ran to the son, which means that the father was on the front porch doing what? He was looking out, he was anticipating, he was hoping he was longing for his son to come home. And he wondered every single day, “Is this the day that we’re going to be able to slaughter the fattened calf that have been feeding since the day that he left?” And on this particular occasion, he sees his son far off. And what does he do? He runs to him. Now you have to ask yourself the question: why does he run to his son? Because in that day and age, is that the younger son has come to the conclusion that the community and his family has held a funeral for him; that they would’ve already declared that he’s dead.

And so he’s thinking that they’ve already declared that I’m dead. And the father knew that the community saw him. They would give him dirty looks, they would start throwing stones at him because he was literally dead to the community. The father knew that the son would be clothed in shame and guilt if he didn’t get to him first. And what does the father do? The father gets to him, covers him up, goes arm in arm and brings him back to the house. And what the father was literally saying is that if you’re going to give a dirty look to my son, you’ve got to come through me. If you’re going to throw stones at my son, you’re going to have to hit me first, because why? Because when the father brought the son home and brought ’em back to the porch, the servants are there and the servants are saying, “What should we do?”

And the literal translation, and the Greek, was this. The Father says: “Robe. Best. Quick. What robe should we get him?” “My robe?” “Which one?” “The very best.” “When should we get it for him?” “Right now at this very moment. He’s wearing my tuxedo to the dinner party, tonight. No one is working tonight. We’re going to have a big feast. We’re going to kill the fattened calf that we’ve been feeding every single day. Get sandals for his feet, get the ring for his finger. This son of mine was dead but he’s alive now. Strike up the band. We’re having a party tonight. We’re having a dinner. No one’s working today. Everybody come into the house and we’re going to celebrate and have a party.” And friends, that is what the church is supposed to look like. That is how the church is supposed to respond.

We’re to clap, we’re to celebrate because why? Friends, this is a church and the house always wins over shame, guilt, tragedy, trials, tribulations and fear. And how do I know that? Because that’s what the Bible says. Look with me at Psalm chapter 68:6.

“God sets the lonely where in families in his house, in his home, and he leads out the prisoners with singing…”

Psalm chapter 68:6

Folks, many of you, you are caught up in addiction, you’re caught up in your own world, you’re caught up in your own agenda, you’re bound up by your own demise if you will. But listen to me, God is willing to set you free. God’s willing to set you free out of your bondage. And he’s willing to put the lonely in families. But look at this, notice what happens:

“…But the rebellious, those who are not willing to come to the Lord, those who wants to do it on their own, they live in a dry land where there’s nothing available to them.”

And see friends, it is interesting to me that the younger son comes home, there’s the banquet table, there’s the gala, there’s the feast. Everybody’s happy, the lonely has been set in the family. The rebellious has come home from the dry land. Now there’s a celebration. You think that the movie’s ready to end, but does the movie end at this particular moment? No. Because why? The father comes into the banquet hall, he comes into the gala, he looks around, he sees all of his family, he sees his slaves, he sees the community. We’re having a big party tonight, but he looks at the head table and when he looks at the head table, there’s an empty chair. And who’s the empty chair? Who does it represent? It represents the older brother, the older son.

He’s going: “But I have two sons, but there’s only one who is here.” And all of a sudden the camera pans outside, and as it pans to the outside, it sees the older brother coming in from the field. And as he’s coming in from the long day of work, he hears dancing from a far off. Now folks, lemme just say something to you. They must have been having a good time and dancing really loud If the older brother heard it from a long distance off. And again, my friends, that’s what the church is supposed to be like, because why? Because here’s the reason: because we were dead. Is anybody excited? Because you were once dead that you’re now alive? Is anybody here excited and want to celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ is living inside of you through the Holy Spirit? Aren’t you glad? Anybody excited that your name is written in the book of heaven? Is anybody excited that you received the grace of God today when you did not deserve the grace of God? Aren’t you thankful for the mercies and the grace of God that’s fresh and new every single day? That’s what church is supposed to be like!

But anyway, the older brother, he’s been dreading this day from the very moment that his younger brother left. The older brother walks up to the house, he hears the music, he feels the dancing, he ask one of his servants: “What’s going on?” And the servant says: “Your younger brother…” he says: “Don’t bring his name up to me.” He goes: “What’s all this extravagance? What is all of this waste?” And the servant says: “Well, your younger brother, who was dead, is now alive. Who is lost, is now found.” And the scripture says that the father ran the second time. And when did he run? The second time he ran the second time when he went outside looking for the older brother. And the Bible says, there in the Greek, that the father literally pleaded with the older son, the older brother: “Please come in, please come in, please come in, come and be a part of this.”

But the older brother would not uncross his arms. The older brother would not budge whatsoever. And the reality is, is that the older brother is upset because he feels like that he deserves the celebration. And the reality is the younger son who’s in a distant country has come back home and the elder brother, who now has his arms crossed, is farther from the Father than the younger brother has ever been. Not because of his sin, but because of his Pharisees like mind. He had the mindset that he deserved to be celebrated. He deserved to determine anything that he wanted. See, the younger son realized that the father knew best. He understood that the father’s house is not a place of prison, but it’s a place of liberation. But now the older brother, he’s describing the house as a house of slavery because he feels like he never got his fair shake of treatment, money, and recognition that he deserved.

And he was upset, not because he looked to the father and the father disappointed him. He’s upset because he wanted to be God. He wanted to declare, he wanted to determine who could sit at the table. He wanted to determine who was welcome into the father’s house. He wanted to determine the rules and he refused to come into the house. He refused to come into the house and celebrate, because why? Because the rebellious live in a dry land. And this older brother lived in the dry land as his story ends, because why? He had a fair seed like mindset. He wanted to be God. He wanted to determine who should be in the house, who should have a seat at the table? He wanted to determine the rules. But lemme just say something to you: the house always wins. Now I’m just going to take “WINS” in the next few minutes.

I’m going to describe to you what I mean by “the house always wins.” Number one:

The house wins because of worship.

Folks, when we talk about worship, we can define worship as glorify God, giving him the honor where honor is due; is to put it another way. That’s what we were created for, was to glorify God and to worship him. And when we do not worship God, then guess what? We end up worshiping something else. And the Bible calls that what? Idolatry. Say that with me. Idolatry. And if you’re not worshiping God, you’re worshiping something else. And we were designed to worship God. And when we come together, and we worship God, and we honor him, and we glorify God as creator, as king, as sovereign, as a friend, as the Lord; we’re not just invited to worship God by ourselves, but there’s power when you and I worship God together. There’s something about you and I coming together to worship God; that God blesses our joint approach to worship.

I can’t explain it, it just happens. Sure, you should go out in nature and worship God on your own. Sure you should have your own private time of worship. Sure you should open your Bible up and read the Bible and do your devotion. But listen to me, friends, God created you and I to worship together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and he invites us to come together and worship together. And when we worship together, then there’s something that’s beautiful that happens. We know the benefits of worship when we come together, but what does it look like? What does it unlock when we worship together? Well look with me at Psalm 22:3. It says:

“But You are holy, O You who inhabits the praises of Israel.”

Psalm 22:3

Folks, listen to me. God, he rejoices. He bask in the fact that when you and I, when we worship together, is that we declare that anything is possible when we declare that he’s in the house, when we declare that there’s miracles that can take place, that there’s healing that can take place, there’s salvation that can take place, marriages that can be restored when we are sitting here and we are declaring the goodness of God.

Folks, understand, this is the reason why the worship team was trying to get us to see that this is not a common moment. This is a supernatural moment. We are the supernatural society of God’s redeem. And when we come together, it’s nothing ordinary. We’re standing on holy ground. God is willing to show up and to show off. And we’re not the only one singing. We have to understand that when we’re worshiping together, Jesus is in the house and Jesus is worshiping and singing with us. How do I know that? Well, look at this next passage. Psalm chapter 22, a Messianic psalm, and Jesus is here talking:

 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?…” Remember that as holy week, right? “…Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One…” And notice what Jesus says: “…I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you.”

Psalm 22

And Jesus Christ is present. He’s enthroned in the moment is that folks listen to me. We are singing but we’re not singing alone. Jesus Christ, the son of God, is declaring to his father: “Look at my children, look at the bride, look at east side. Look at how they’re pushing back darkness. Look at how they’re worshiping you.” And he’s going: “Dad, look at them. Rejoice.” And this is exactly why the house always wins. Because when worship goes up, the presence of God comes down. But there’s a second thing that I want you to understand:

The “I” is identity.

The “I” is identity. And the church is a place where we come together and we remind each other of our identity. Out there in the world, you’ve got to earn your place. You got to do something special to be enough.

I was reading this past week an article about a chef in France who committed suicide. And he committed suicide I think a couple years ago. And he left his wife and his young son, without a husband, without a father with no income. He was a chef at his restaurant that he owned. And the rumor had it that the Michelin company was going to take away one of his stars. He was the owner and the chef of a restaurant that had three Michelin stars. And the belief was that they’re going to take one away. And people in the restaurant business would tell you that the most difficult thing besides attaining the third star is keeping the third star. And he couldn’t imagine his identity being tied to anything else than the third star. And you know what happened? He killed himself; rather than living without the identity as being one of the world’s best shelf.

And the reality is that the Michelin company had never even thought about taking away one of his stars. It was all rumors. And when I read that and heard that, I just said: “Isn’t that just a tragic picture of the life in this world? Where you must continue to be enough?” You have to be pretty enough, you have to be successful enough. We’re like the older brother here in the United States. Everything depends upon us. If anything’s going to get done, I’ve got to do it. My whole life depends upon me. Where is the goat? I’ve got to have the goat because why? Because I have performed. And folks, that is just pressure. But here in this house, it always wins, because why? Honey, It is not about you. It’s about Jesus. And we get confused. It’s not about you honey, it’s about Jesus. It’s about where you are loved.

Have a seat. You’re enough, you’re chosen, you’re called, you’re quip. You’ve got the spirit. It was never based on you in the first place, my friends, it was placed on you because of the love of Jesus that he has for you. And some of you’re going: “Well, I don’t feel worthy. I don’t feel like I lived a good life this past week. I don’t know if I can continue to be at church.” Folks, listen to me. Welcome to the church. This is what church is all about, encouraging one another that we can make it through another week. And lemme just ask you a question: aren’t you grateful for the love of God? Aren’t you grateful for how good God is? Aren’t you grateful for how wonderful and merciful he is? He’s the friend of sinners like you and like me and he loves us. And I just thought about this past week; how sick is it to be loved by God? I mean, think about it. Folks, it’s sick to be loved by God. He loves us and spite of who we are and our identity is not in this world, but it’s in Jesus Christ who loves us with unconditional love.

The “N” is network.

The “N” is for network. We got to network with other believers. And that network of other believers gives us stability during difficulties. In the New Testament, Paul uses different metaphors to talk about the church, the house, the community. Some of it talks about buildings, but other times he talks about trees. And I got thinking about, well what’s the tallest tree on the planet? And did a little research. And the Redwood, and the crazy thing is that the Redwood can grow to 350 feet tall. They can live as long as 2000 years. So think about this; there’s potentially some Redwoods that’s on Earth right now that was here when Jesus walked the planet. Isn’t that pretty wild? And you think about, well, how does the Redwood trees, how do they sustain the weather and the storms and the trials and tribulations?

And my first thought was, they got to have a big root system, I got looking at it, you know what the root system is? The deepest root of a Redwood only goes down 6 -12 feet, 350 feet tall, 12 feet deep. Well then you go, well, it’s only 12 feet deep, then they have to have big round roots. Nope, the average size of a root of a redwood is one inch round. And then you go: “Well, how do they survive?” It’s because they grow in families, and their roots spread out and they interconnect with other Redwood trees. And as they interact with each other and overlap with each other, they create what is called a “family circle.” Family circles of trees. And so the reality is, is that if you’re going to take out one Redwood tree, guess what you have to do?

You have to take out the entire circle of Redwood trees. And they say that in the family of redwood trees, that’s in the circle, that there’s a baby Redwood tree. They know to send the right nutrients to that baby Redwood tree so they can grow and develop. If there’s a sick Redwood tree, they know exactly what to do. They share their wealth with each other. And if there’s an elderly one that needs some help, they send the nutrients there as well. It’s a family circle. And I got to thinking; man, isn’t that a symbolism? Isn’t that a metaphor of our life group ministry here at Eastside? That we’re a family circle, that if you’re not going to take out one, you got to take out the entire life group. That’s what Courtney was just talking about this just a second ago. Listen to me friends, is that there in our life group?

And somebody says: “I need prayer,” we come to their rescue. If they’re say they’re struggling with something, we say: “You’re not going by yourself. I feel like I’m going to fall back into an old pattern, old sin of addiction.” No you’re not. We’re going to be with you. We’re going to help you because the life group there, the members saying I need help. And we come to your rescue. But folks, listen to me. Your life group, your family circle cannot come to your rescue if you remain silent and don’t show up at life group, and don’t share what’s going on in your heart and in your life. But I’m telling you, the times that I’ve been on the struggle bus and sometimes I’ve been the driver of the bus, not just a passenger. You know what I’m saying, I’ve called out to my Life Group, I’ve called out to friends and family and they’ve circled me up and they’ve helped me and sustained me.

And that is the Ministry of the Life Group. And if you’re just experiencing church in the rows and not in the circles, you’re missing out on the most important thing that you could experience God with, and that is with Life Group. And the letter “S” stands for serve. Is that we’ll get to serve. We’ll get to serve him. I was thinking about how I could talk to you about this, and maybe a good way for me to help you to understand serve is that if you don’t like serving in the local church, you’re going to hate Heaven, because part of Heaven is serving.

But the good news is we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to serve. We need to serve right now. I mean, like our hospitality team and new guest team, welcome the prodigal son, the prodigal daughter home this morning. So we’re glad that you’re here is that we welcome the person who was wrapped in shame and guilt. We welcome the person who was full of fear and anxiety walking into the church. We welcome them. That’s part of us serving. Some of us, we get to go and get the fattened calf and take it to the butcher and have the banquet. And some of us, we get to go into the closet and find the extra table leaf and put it in the table to make the table bigger. Some of us, we get to go get the chairs, the extra chairs out of the closet and make the table and the seats around the table bigger. Some of us, we get to go and put the ring on the prodigal daughter who just came home. I mean folks listen to me, we get to serve not only the men and women who’ve been prodigal, but we also get to storm the gates of Hell and reach into Hell and help to rescue those who are dying and lost and going to Hell.

See, we’ll get to serve him. Some of you are going:”Well here it comes. Pastor is just going to make me feel guilty again. I’m not served. I’m not giving.” Listen, just hush. Alright? Just be quiet. I mean you think God needs your help? I mean, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He spoke the world into existence. He doesn’t need your help. Here’s how I would say it. I would say it like this: “He doesn’t need you to serve him, but you need to serve him.” And why? Because you’ll come to a greater appreciation of who God is in a way that you would never discover unless you serve them. Lemme see if I can close out with an illustration. And the illustration deals with the Jordan River.

The Jordan River flows into two bodies of water. One is full of life. There’s plant life, there’s fish, there’s towns, there’s people all around this one body of water. And the other body of water that the Jordan River flows into, there’s no life, there’s no fish, there’s no creatures. In fact, that one body of water, it is 10 times saltier than the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, 35% of the water content is salt. In fact, if you put your finger into the dead ocean and you take that finger that you’ve dipped in and you don’t wipe it off, you just take it and rub it in your eye, your eye will burn for hours to come. I know, because I did it. But here’s the thing. The Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River runs into it. Then the Sea of Galilee has an outlet that runs into the Dead Sea. And the Dead Sea has no outlet. All it does, the Red Sea just takes, takes, takes, takes, takes and takes and never give anything. You know what happens with a Christian who just takes and takes and takes? They become salty, and they become bloated because when I have too much salt, I can’t get my rings off my finger, I can’t. My ankles, they swell because why? I become bloated. And can you imagine Christians who are just taking and taking and taking? And where God has designed you to serve?

And this morning, here’s my challenge to you. My challenge to you is to go to my people lounge and we’re going to have a team of people out there that will help you to find a place to serve. Now lemme just say something to you. When I was growing up in the church, serving was a life sentence. Once you signed up, you had to serve for the rest of your life. Well, around here at Eastside, we don’t do that. When you sign up to serve, you only serve every three weeks. We have three week rotations. And the reason why we have three week rotations is because you have a life. But we know that serving is important. And if you go and sign up, then we will get you to shadow someone for a Sunday. We’ll have a spiritual conversation with you. Find out what your gifting is, where you like to serve. They give you an opportunity to go and try it out. Don’t like it? You can try out something else. We want you to find joy and purpose in your serving. And so my challenge for you this morning is for you to go, and if you’re not serving, to start serving.

It’s a great time to do that. So with that, would you please stand? I’m going to close this out with prayer and then you’re going to be dismissed.Lemme give one more challenge. I got one more challenge in me. “Inspire” is coming up in a couple weeks. Now I don’t want to embarrass anyone and say: “How many of you’ve never been to “Inspire”? Raise your hand.” Nor am I going to say: “If you’ve been to “Inspire”, raise your hand.” Here’s my challenge. If you’ve never been to “Inspire”, I want to ask you to come on March the sixth. I want you to come give it one opportunity. And if you don’t like it, you can just buy the T-shirt, been there, done that, not going back, okay? And you could do that, and we’ll have them on sale after the service. But I promise you, if you come once, you’ll be hooked. And so I’m going to encourage you, if you want to have a free meal at 6:00 PM, you need to register. If you’re just going to show up, get here a few minutes early, about 6:20- 6:25, and we have a special service that’s planned, and you’ll not regret showing up for “Inspire.” So lemme pray over you and then you’re dismissed.

Father, thank you that the House always wins. It always wins over shame and guilt and fear and trials and tribulations. And tragedies and death and grief. And Father, we’re just grateful that your house is a place of grace and mercy, and that everyone can have a seat at the table. And we pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. God bless. Have a great week.