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In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp explores the profound themes of the Prodigal Son parable, emphasizing both sons' significance in the narrative. He shows the family crisis initiated by the younger son and the idolatry present in both sons' actions. The message highlights the importance of understanding idolatry as a root cause of sin and the necessity of redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- The Prodigal Son parable is about two sons, not just one.
- Both sons contribute to the family crisis in unique ways.
- Idolatry manifests in both rebellion and obedience.
- The younger son represents those who run away from God.
- The elder brother represents those who obey but for idolatrous reasons.
- Idolatry leads to slavery, regardless of its form.
- Jesus Christ is our true elder brother who pays the cost for our redemption.
- The father's love is unconditional and sacrificial.
- Understanding our idolatry is crucial for spiritual growth.
- We must recognize the state of our hearts in relation to God.
Creators & Guests
What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?
Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.
Aaron Shamp (00:05.068)
Alright, that is a rooted foundry that's Saturday. Okay, it's gonna be next Saturday. Alright, great, that's gonna be a good time. You just said the weekend, so yeah. I don't know what you consider the weekend. Okay, Saturday. So Saturday is whenever we'll be getting together. And that'll be good time, fun time. For those of you guys who aren't from Acadiana, this festival is probably one of the best opportunities to get to see some Cajun culture, so it'll be a good time.
Well, it's great to see you guys. As always, it is a joy and privilege for me to get to worship with you guys and to worship with you by giving the word. And so this morning we're continuing in the series that we started last week called At the Father's Table, and we're going to be in Luke chapter 15. So if your Bible's with you, you can open up to Luke chapter 15 or you can just read the passage on the screens next to me. We should have it in there.
So we're gonna be in Luke 15 and we're gonna be starting verse 11 today. Last week we looked at the first two parables that Jesus gave in this series of three parables. And today we're starting the third one that he gave, which is the largest one out of the three and by far the most famous, if not one of the most famous of all of Jesus's, one of the most famous passages in all the Bible. So.
It is exciting to get to start that today and we're gonna sit in this and learn from it for the next few weeks. So once again, Luke chapter 15 and verse 11.
Aaron Shamp (01:41.772)
Alright, so if we're all there and ready, we'll go ahead and get started in Luke chapter 15 and starting verse 11.
Jesus also said, a man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me. So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck in that country and he had nothing.
Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food? And here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up, go to my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and your sight.
I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers." So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father told his servants, quick.
Bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it and let's celebrate with a feast. Because this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field. As he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. He summoned one of the servants questioning what these things meant. Your brother is here, he told him.
Aaron Shamp (03:46.218)
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. Then he became angry and didn't want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him, but he replied to his father, look, I've been slaving many years for you and I have never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came,
who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him. Son, he said to him, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So.
Here we are today starting in the most famous of all of Jesus's parables. And like I said before, beyond just parables, one of the most famous passages in all of scripture, a little story that has made its impact on the world for generations. Charles Dickens said that this parable was the greatest short story ever written.
Many people have admired it for the narrative that Jesus teaches here, but there's also a lot of meaning for us to mine out and discover in this story as we go through it over the next several weeks. We call this story, the prodigal son or the parable of the prodigal son, because of this, you know, the moving narrative of this young son who goes away and squanders his inheritance and reckless living. And then he comes home and is received back by
father is very heartwarming. So because that's so we call the pair with the prodigal son. Prodigal essentially means reckless. But it's kind of a misnomer because the story is actually a story about two sons. Jesus says it at the very beginning of the parable. He says there's a father who has two sons. And so don't get me wrong.
Aaron Shamp (05:51.06)
The first half of the story is wonderful, right? Magnificent, we can get a lot out of that. But to truly get the genius and the power of this story, we need to understand the full thing and we need to look at both sons because Jesus is making some very serious points of application to the people that he was directly speaking to here. And we wanna make sure that we get those as well. It's the fact that there are two sons in this story and what happens in the whole story that really makes it
And so today that's what we're looking at is a tale of two sons, as I call it. Let's ask three questions as we go through this story. First, what happened? What's happening here in this story? Because it's a pretty drastic change in Jesus' series of three parables in Luke 15. So what happened? Why is it happening? And then what can fix it? All right, three simple questions. What is happening? Why is it happening? And what can fix it? What can be the solution?
So what is happening? Let's begin by just reminding ourselves of the context here. If you go back to the top of Luke chapter 15, you'll remember that what kicked off these parables was that Jesus, it says, was welcoming sinners. Task collectors and sinners were coming to him and he was welcoming them. And what we mean by that is not just that he was nice, you know, as a politician would be superficially nice to the crowds that are coming around them, but really want nothing else.
do with them than just garner their vote. Jesus welcoming the crowds is not just a superficial nicety. What it means is that he was actually embracing them. He was welcoming them in the sense of embracing them into a new relationship with himself because the Pharisees grumble that he welcomes these tax collectors and sinners, people who are the worst of the worst in their eyes, and he eats with them. And that's the clue there, that Jesus was sitting down and sharing meals with
of these people that the Pharisees would have wanted nothing to do with because they were, these were the immoral, these were the irreligious, right? These were the prodigal sons and daughters that Jesus was welcoming. And so in response to the Pharisees grumbling, he gives these three parables. The first one we looked at last week, the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. And now he gives this third one. And this third one is a pretty sharp.
Aaron Shamp (08:17.14)
departure from some of the themes that he was laying out in the first two parables in several different ways. One of those being that, you know, in the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin, all there was was one kind of subject. There was one lost sheep that is sought out and brought home. There's one lost coin that is discovered and brought put back with the other ones. Whereas here he starts off with now there's two kind of primary subjects. He says there are two sons, right? So that's one pretty sharp departure here.
And we got to remember the people that Jesus was speaking to. It's Jesus, there's the tax collectors and sinners and okay, we can kind of see that. And the younger son in the lost coin, the lost sheep. now he's starting to make some applications to that other group of people that are standing there, which will be the Pharisees. He says, now there's two sons here. It's also a pretty sharp departure in that kind of the theme of the story changes a good bit. You know, before the theme of the story and plot was pretty simple.
There's an object that was lost, someone finds it. In this case, the setting is quite different. What's happening here, ultimately, so I'm just going to lay it out, and the first question is what's happening. So what's happening here is essentially we have a family drama. We have a family drama that's happening in this third story, this parable. And what's happening is that there is a family crisis. We're reading about the story of a family unraveling and falling apart.
That's ultimately what's happening here. And each of the two sons contribute to that conflict and that fallen part of the family in unique ways. It's not just the younger brother, but the older brother as well. So let's look into that. It's the story of a family unraveling, of this great crisis that happens. The crisis is initiated by the younger son. You see, first of all, the younger son is threatening the...
the relational cohesion of the family, the financial future and security of the family. He is threatening the well-being of his family with his request early on by asking for his share of the family portion or his share of the family inheritance early on in the story. There's a couple different nuances to this and ways we can see that he is threatening the family here. First of all, let's talk about financially.
Aaron Shamp (10:35.686)
He was greatly destabilizing the financial well-being of the family by requesting his share of the inheritance. So Jesus says there's a father with two sons. The way that, let me give you a little bit of historical context, just bear with me. I'm gonna go quick. I know the history stuff bores a lot of us. I'm gonna go quick, okay? All right, so there's a father and he has two sons. The way that this normally would have gone is that whenever the father dies, he would have divided his estate into three shares.
Okay, the older, even though he only has two sons, the older brother would have gotten two thirds of the estate. The younger brother would have gotten one third. This is because according to their Jewish custom, the eldest son in the family was supposed to get a double inheritance of everyone else. This was his firstborn right. So however many sons there would have been, it would have been divided up.
Equally, the older brother would have gotten a double share and then everyone else, then the rest would have been divided among everyone else. So there's two sons. So the younger brother is taking one third of the family's wealth here. Now let's remember, the father most likely wasn't a stockbroker. He most likely didn't have the family wealth in Bitcoin or in money markets or anything like that.
this was to be any kind of wealthy family, most likely would have meant to have property.
to have land, to have agriculture, right? To have some kind of farm, whether it be produce or livestock and so on. That's what the family wealth was tied up in, was in the property, in the farm, in the business, you can say. So for the younger son to go to the father and say, you know what, I want my inheritance now, that would mean that the father, in order to accept his request, would have to liquidate one third of the family's wealth, of one third of the family's business, property, whatever else it was, so he could give it
Aaron Shamp (12:31.95)
to the younger son, to lose one third of your wealth, you can see that would be destabilizing, right? That would be difficult. That would be a big hit to the family. So that's the first way that the younger son is threatening the stability of the family by requesting that wealth that they would have to liquidate a large part of and give it to him in order to answer it. He's also threatening the family in that he takes his inheritance and he doesn't start to kind of build up a parallel business that blesses
his family back, but what does he do? He takes his inheritance and he goes away to a far country. He leaves them. So not only is he hurting the family financially, he's hurting them relationally. He takes all that wealth and he just goes away.
It shows that he has very little concern, very little love and warmth toward his family and that all he wants really is the money. He wants the money so he can get out of there and go live the life that he wants to live independent from the rest of them. If we put ourselves in the shoes of that family, even the elder brother here, we can see that that hurt. That'd be difficult. It would threaten the family. But then lastly, what we need to see here in the ways that the younger brother is threatening the family.
He's threatening the family cohesion, their relationships, and that his request is a direct insult to his father. Just imagine, even in our day to day, where our economy is very different, different culture and so on, if you were to go up to your living parents and tell them, you know what, I think I would like to get my inheritance now. I don't really want to wait for it. I don't want to wait for you to die to get it. I'd rather just get it now. That would be a little insulting to your parents, would it not?
If not a little insulting, would be very insulting. know, it would communicate to them, you're worth more to me dead than alive because I really just want to get my inheritance and I'm kind of tired of just waiting around for that day. That would be a direct hit to the father.
Aaron Shamp (14:35.004)
and a harsh statement of how that son actually feels about his father that he kind of wants his money. And he shows it, it's a double insult in that as we said before, once he gets it, he leaves. Really confirming to everyone he has no love for his father as much as just wanting to get his inheritance from his father. So we can see how this family crisis and drama is started because of the younger son.
But the older son, the elder brother threatens the family as well. We can see this if we go to the end of the story. All so let's just kind of skip over everything else that happens. The younger brother comes back, the father welcomes him back into the family. He throws this great party for him and so on. Notice the father spares no expense when it comes to throwing the party, but also in that he welcomes the son back into the family. After the son had already made the family one third poorer,
than they were before, he now says, you're back in. The son makes an offer to be a slave or just a worker to his father, but the father refuses that and instead, you're my son, right? So which it means once again, going to get an inheritance again one day, right? Okay, so the elder brother recognizes all of this.
And instead of celebrating with his father and with his family on what is arguably the best day of the father's life, right? In his words, he says, my son was dead and is now alive. That is the kind of dynamics that their relationship had been through because of the younger son's actions. It was as though he was dead, right? But now he's back in. This is, like I said, arguably the greatest day of the father's life in his exuberant celebration, right?
And the older brother refuses to go in. Finally, it looks as though there's reconciliation, that drama, that crisis that had started, whether it be months, years before, the son is back home, the brother's back home, there's celebration, the family is back together, but there's an obstacle to that reconciliation, and it's the older brother. Now the older brother is the one threatening the cohesion, the relational wellbeing, and the family.
Aaron Shamp (16:54.16)
on, he's keeping the crisis ongoing by his refusal to welcome his younger brother back and to go back into the party. So both sons are threatening the family and adding to the crisis. The younger son is doing so by requesting his inheritance and going off and squandering it away on reckless living. The older brother is threatening the family by, not by his, what should we say?
And on my similar actions as a young brother, he's instead threatened the family by his obedience. The reason he refuses to go back into the party is because he says, all these years I've been working for you and you never threw me a party. It's on the grounds of I stayed. It's on the grounds that I respected you, I honored you, I worked for you, I obeyed your rules and I never got a party. And so he refuses to go in.
both of them adding to the crisis, but on very different grounds. And this draws us into why this is happening here and where the threat to the family is coming from. If we're gonna understand this story and be able to apply it to our lives, we gotta get down to the root of what is causing it here. What is causing this crisis that is happening? And we can see that the root cause,
is the same for both brothers, even though they add to the crisis in very different ways. The root cause that's threatening this family is idolatry. It's idolatry that is threatening the family here. Both sons are engaged in idolatry, but they just go about their idolatry in very different ways. You see, the younger son shows
through his request and through his leaving the family that he doesn't actually love his father as much as he loves his father's things. He's not interested in a relationship with his father as much as he is just wanting to get that blessing, as much blessing as he can from his father. And that's all he's really interested in doing with his father. That is a.
Aaron Shamp (18:58.164)
picture for us of what idolatry looks like whenever it comes to our relationship with God. If we don't value God, if we don't want God the Father, if we don't desire to be in a relationship with Him just so that we might know Him and be in relationship with Him, but instead all of our prayers and all of our religious works and all the things we do are really just motivated by wanting to get things from God, well then that's what we call idolatry.
And that's displayed greatly in the younger son's actions here. We can do the very same thing. The younger son shows that he doesn't really appreciate his father's relationship, he just wants his stuff.
We can practice idolatry in a lot of different ways in our lives. We can do so in ways that look a lot like what the younger son does here, where we just completely run away from God so that we can pursue our own life on our own terms, doing what we desire to do, pursuing the things that we value the most and so on, irregardless of what God tells us about how we ought to live our lives and...
refusing to submit to what He says for us, right? This is one of the ways we can see idolatry lived out in immorality and in gross and obvious sin, right? But what the elder brother shows us in this story is that he doesn't really value his relationship with the father either.
Because whenever it comes to welcoming his younger brother back, which will mean a dividing of the inheritance all over again, and all the other expenses that have been given to this son, now we see that because he didn't get that same blessing, he's not interested in maintaining his relationship with his father either. He says, all these years I've been slaving for you and you never even gave me a goat. Those words reveal his motivation for working for his father.
Aaron Shamp (20:57.834)
He hadn't been working for his father just to please his father because he loved his father. Because if he loved his father, he would desire what his father desires, right? His words show instead that just like his younger brother, he just wants his father's blessing. He just wants his father's wealth. He just wants his father's things. He wants all those rewards that he thinks should be coming to him because of his obedience.
He wants the Father's things over the Father, just like his younger brother, but he pursued it not by running away, but by staying and obeying, by following the rules. But deep down in his heart, he was practicing the same idolatry as his younger brother. So we can see in our lives how this can play out.
We can see how you can be obeying the 10 commandments. You can be praying, you can be going to church, you can be trying to check off different religious boxes off of your to-do list while all the time having your heart set on things that are not God, while all the time doing those things, checking off those boxes so that I can get some blessing or reward in return. We can see this.
in one of the most obvious ways, and whenever we don't get the reward that we thought was coming to us, and then we're angry, we rebel, we cry out to God, and we demand, why did we not get what we thought was coming to us, right? Maybe we have a short season of backsliding or whatever else, because we say, well, what's the point of keeping up all this obedience? What's the point of keeping up this?
prayer, what's the point of consistent church attendance, group attendance and so on if I don't get X, Y or Z? In those circumstances, where we don't get the reward that we think is coming to us, it shows very clearly and drastically, we were not obeying because we loved God, we were obeying because we wanted God to give us something. And that is idolatry. Idolatry is slavery.
Aaron Shamp (23:01.064)
Idolatry, whenever we set our heart on something that is not God the Father, it will eventually enslave us. It will make us captive to whatever it is. We can see this in different forms of idolatry pretty clearly, okay? So let's say, let's choose a younger brother form of idolatry, all right? So pursuing other things other than God in very immoral ways, all right? One of the most obvious examples that we can point to would be like alcoholism.
Desiring and wanting that same experience over and over again through this substance. And eventually what happens through valuing that and loving that and pursuing that, what will happen? It leads to what we call addiction. Addiction to that substance, it's alcohol, whether it is prescription medication, drugs, whether it is pornography or other acts.
that we kept pursuing because we valued and wanted that experience over and over again. And now slowly what has happened by going over and over again is it has us in chains, right? We become once again, addicted to it. Addiction is on a spiritual level, slavery to an idol. So we can see it clearly there. And we can see the breakdown that happens in someone's life because of slavery to idolatry and the destruction.
that that brings. We can see it really clearly and obviously in younger brother examples where someone pursues it through immorality. But you know what? You can be a slave to idols that don't necessarily make your life break down, but at least on the outside, make your life look really, really good. Let me give you kind of like a silly example. Real, but maybe a little lighthearted. If you.
Aaron Shamp (24:58.366)
if your idol is your house and the perception that your house gives to other people about you, whether it is big or beautiful or immaculately clean, because you have so much of your value and identity wrapped up in the presentation of that place, because it's a reflection of you and your success, your status, and so on, what can happen is,
is that house doesn't really become a home, it becomes a place that you end up serving because you have overextended yourself financially or because you are unwilling to let anyone threaten that image that you have. So whenever you enter someone's house like this, it's kind of like walking into a museum. Have you ever been in a place like that where you walk into someone's house and you can just feel it's uncomfortable there? It's not comfortable like a home where you can be relaxed and you know,
Instead, like I said, it feels like walking to a museum where you're scared of messing anything up, right, because of how perfectly immaculate that person has it. No, I'm not saying that having a clean house is idolatry, okay? But if your self-image is wrapped up in the presentation of your home, of your vehicles, of your appearance and so on, what ends up happening is now you're, it's not a home really anymore, it's just this showpiece.
It's this pedestal that you have that you end up serving. We can see another obvious example of how idolatry leads to slavery in consumer debt, right? Whenever we, because we cannot say no to having things or because we cannot say no to having better forms of things that we need, right? Because we either want those things or because we want people to be impressed with the things we have, the affluence that we put on.
put before the world, we rack up consumer debt. And now that consumer debt has us in chains. In Proverbs, it does say literally that the borrower is a slave to the lender. Because of idolatry in our heart, we become slaves. You can see this played out in the story in the Lord of the Rings of Gollum, right? Gollum is, he begins as a different kind of creature who finds this ring.
Aaron Shamp (27:23.27)
and he loves it, he adores it. It becomes something that he desires more than anything else. But that inordinate desire, that love that was too strong for this thing ends up enslaving him. And over the course of his entrapment and his enslavement to this idol, which is the ring, it literally changes who he is. And idolatry will do the same thing to us. Whether it is a younger brother form of idolatry,
where it's very obvious, it's immoral living, reckless living, or whether it is an elder brother idolatry, where we pursue the things that we want by our obedience, but either way, at end of the day, becoming slaves to that which we worship that is not God. So what can fix this family, and what can fix the problem that we have if we are entrapped in slavery to idols? Well, let's go back to the story and look at it.
We see that the younger son is welcomed back into the family. The father is thrilled to see him. He throws his party. Now, as I kind of mentioned before, the father doesn't say to the son, okay, you can come back and work here, but obviously you can't have your sonship back because that would mean giving you an inheritance again and you already got yours. That's the idea that the son had in mind, but the father refuses it. The father welcomes him back in.
not just to the household, but back into the family, having his sonship restored, which means that he is going to have a portion of the inheritance again. The father has already greatly reduced his wealth, that he's already put the family at risk by liquidating a third of his wealth and giving it to the son, but now he restores the son at a cost once again. There's a great cost to him before, and now it's gonna cost him something again to bring the son back into the family.
He's already lost a considerable amount of his wealth and now to restore his son is gonna mean dividing it all over again. But the father is willing to pay this cost to receive his wayward son back into the family. And that tells us something about our situation as well. Whenever we are caught in idolatry, for us to be freed from our idolatry and to go from being slaves to receiving sonship in God's family in a seat at his table,
Aaron Shamp (29:48.67)
It will cost God the Father something to receive us into his family. But God the Father is willing to make this cost and this sacrifice. How does he do it? In this story, we get down to the end where the elder brother finds out that his wayward younger brother is back home and he's gonna be welcomed back into the family. The father has to pay considerable cost, but you know, really,
Whose pocket it's gonna come out of to welcome that younger brother back into the family is the older brother. That two thirds of the wealth that was left was supposed to be his. And now welcoming his younger brother back in means it's gonna be divided once again. It's gonna be smaller than what he should have gotten. To welcome the younger son back into the family, the elder brother would have had to have been willing to sacrifice, to essentially pay the cost.
so that his younger brother could come back in. And he refuses that. The younger son in this story didn't have a good older brother, but praise God that we do. It would cost God the Father something to welcome rebellious sons and daughters, slaves back into his family. And in order to pay the cost so that we could come back in, that cost would have to be put on to our elder brother. It would have to be put on to God's truly
obedient son, Jesus Christ. Jesus earned his sonship before God through his perfect obedience. And not just perfect obedience to get something from God the Father, but because he loves God the Father. Because he was in unity with God the Father. Because he valued God the Father above everything else. Therefore, on this basis, he was obedient to the Father.
He valued what God the Father valued. And he loves what God the Father loves, and that includes us. The elder brother in this story, because he didn't truly love his father, didn't love what his father loved as well. But Jesus Christ loved what God the Father loves, and that includes us rebels. It includes us who are, whenever we are outside of Jesus Christ, headed for condemnation and eternal judgment.
Aaron Shamp (32:11.488)
that includes us who are idolaters, us who are orphans. Because God the Father loves us, we have a good older brother, Jesus Christ, who takes the payment. He takes the cost, the sacrifice upon himself, but not just in dividing wealth, but in his life. At the cost of his life is what he would have to pay in order to bring you and I, idolatrous rebels, back into the family and to give us a seat at the table. But you know what?
because he is a good older brother. He doesn't just do it, but he is glad. He is glad to do it. For joy, he endured the cross. Because just as he loves what the father loves, that means that he loves you. And so he is glad and he is willing to welcome you back into his family, having a seat at the father's table based upon his sacrifice. So let me just.
call you today.
If you had a story about your relationship with God, would it look more like the younger sons where you have rebelled against the father in immorality and outright rebellion? You have showed your idolatry in those ways and you've become a slave to those idols. Or would your story look more like the elder brother where you as well have practiced idolatry, but it's been shown in all of your obedience?
You know, one way to put it, there's bad boy idolatry and there's good boy idolatry. Which one does your story look more like? Because guys, we all fall into one or the other. We all fall into one or the other. Which story does yours look more like? And are you willing to recognize the state of your heart whenever you are following those idols and the chains that they wrap you up in? And if you recognize that state that you are in, are you?
Aaron Shamp (34:10.508)
ready and willing to receive the cost that Jesus paid for you. Well, I guess not receive that cost. Are you willing to receive the blessing that comes because Jesus paid the cost for you? That's the right way to say it. Are you ready? There's only one way to be welcomed back into the Father's house and have a seat at his table. It's whenever your seat is paid for by the elder brother. So you're ready to submit your life to him. Let's pray.
Lord, we come before you and we praise you that you are a good father, that the father in this story is only a small, small representation of, that your mercy, that your grace and your love abounds to infinite degrees beyond what the father in this story is capable of or any other human father. Because you are not like us, you are holy.
and you have infinite capability for forgiveness, mercy and grace. So Lord, we recognize that no matter how bad our rebellion has been, whether we have been pursuing a bad boy idolatry or a good boy idolatry, that your grace is sufficient to cover our sin. That the work of Jesus Christ is powerful enough to break the chains of any idolatry that we have been wrapped up in, to restore us back
to the intended state that you desire for us, where we are covered in the blood and the work of the lamb, and we are placed in a secure covenant with you, a relationship with you, that we will enjoy for all eternity. So Father, let the beauty of Jesus's work and the incredible gift that we have in Jesus Christ, captivate,
our minds and our hearts so that every other desire and every other thing in life looks small and insignificant in comparison to the wonder of what we have received in Christ. And so let that break the strongholds that idols have over us. Let us be able to turn away and repent because, not because we work so hard to break those chains, but because the light and the beauty of Jesus Christ melted those chains away.
Aaron Shamp (36:40.19)
it pierced the darkness and brought us into new life. Lord, let us experience that today and every day. We pray this in the name of our perfect older brother, our savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Let us stand.