Will We Arise and Go?

There's a phrase in one of the stories of the Gospels that really resonates not just on this weekend when we have Father's Day to think about, or Mother's Day back as we had a few weeks ago in May, but really should resonate with us at all times because it not only speaks to the human relationships with a father, with her mother, really the deepest, most important meaning of the phrase is that it resonates and teaches us about our Father in Heaven, our spiritual Father, and a relationship with Him, which is in the end the most important one.

The phrase that I'm referring to is a phrase in Luke chapter 15, in the parable of the prodigal son that we are all familiar with, and the phrase is found midway through the story when he says regarding his situation, I will arise and go.

I will arise and go. Now, the story of the prodigal son is one that is well known to us. I was even thinking as I was preparing this last night, I think I've spoken on this within the last year, but I'm going to do it again because it's been on my mind because I'm going to be teaching it as part of the Bible class with the campers this year.

So you're going to get a condensed version of two hours of Bible class. So Montana, you and Danny are getting a primer, so I expect you to participate quite fully because you're getting an advanced peek and review of the situation here of what we're going to be talking about. But the theme that I'm using is taken from verse 18 of Luke 15, where the son after he had come to himself said, I will arise and go to my father.

And he goes on from there. I will arise and go. Those are five words that pack a very, very powerful message. More than the story that is here of the prodigal son, because it really speaks to, again, as I said, our spiritual relationship with our father. There is another story in the Bible that connects with this, and it's the story of Jacob. If there is ever a story from the Old Testament that fits and can kind of be married to that of what is called the parable of a lost son, the prodigal son, it is the story of Jacob, who himself was a prodigal, a lost son, who had to leave home because of his deceit with his brother, stealing the blessing, and go through a lot of hard-knocked life experiences.

And then he, too, came to himself and decided, I will arise and go. And he started to go, he went back home, as you know, in the story of Jacob. I'm kind of condensing it there. We'll turn back and notice it in a few minutes.

But the two stories, that is of the son who took his inheritance and left, and that of Jacob, who got a blessing, but then had to flee the wrath of his brother Esau, go to his uncle Laban's, and go through a number of years of experiences there before he finally decided to come home, pack a very powerful story.

I will arise and go. I will arise and go. On the human level, back home, back to a family, it's an all-too-human story that quite frankly all of us have probably lived in one way or the other, whether literally or at least in our own hearts and minds. Because it's a cyclical story that everybody kind of goes through. We grow up in a home, whatever that home might be, as good as it can be, as bad as it might be, and we all, we leave. We start our own home, maybe under good circumstances, maybe we run away, we have to leave home, and we can't get, you know, most of us can't wait to get away from home, get our own independence.

I was that way, and I had a good home, but I was ready at age 19 to go. And I have to admit, a certain degree of even just independence and wanting to finally be on my own and sprout my own wings and do all those things that we say we're going to do. I went off to Ambassador College, and I was cocky, sure of myself, had still had my ties to home, but, you know, that's the way of passage into adulthood with everybody.

And after a number of years, I got this homing instinct to go home. Now, I didn't, I never, I didn't go back and move into the same room that I'd left, okay, like some people do. I never did that. The only nights I ever spent back in my parents' home were as a guest for, you know, one or two nights, usually at the max, and never moved my belongings back in.

But I did get a sense that, you know, I, dad and mom were smarter than I thought they were. You know, the old Mark Twain story, where he thought his dad was as dumb as mud drying on a fence, until years later he realized he was a pretty smart guy.

And I wanted to kind of, in a sense, reconnect, and did in some ways, not as much as I would have liked to, would have, especially now, nearly 20 years since my father died, I wish that I had connected even more. But, you know, those are always regrets that we can't live through. But I had that desire. My brother had gone back home. He had that same desire, and he literally moved back in after some setbacks and a failed marriage and this and that. And he literally did move back in. But I think all of us come to that with our own physical parents.

But when you look at the story of the prodigal son, and we all know that, really, this is, I keep referring to it as the prodigal son, but really it should be renamed, and the story is really the story of the loving father. Because when you really break it down, the father is the center of the story. And the father that the story is pointing us to is our spiritual father. The rest of it is just a device around which everything is attached to teach us a few things, a larger spiritual thing. You know the story. It begins here in verse 11. A certain man had two sons. And the younger said, Let me have my goods, my livelihood. He wanted his inheritance. Now, he was doing inheritance, a portion of whatever, not as much as his older brother, according to the law. He would have had a smaller portion, but he wanted it. He wanted it then, and he wanted to leave. And the father gave it to him.

And he took it, and he left home. He gathered everything, went to a far country, and we're told he wasted what he had with prodigal living. Prodigal living is a phrase that you can just write a whole book about in terms of whatever it might have been. Cars, women, gambling, lottery tickets, vapid dreams of, you know, investments and success into something that turned up to be wasted, failed projects, lost hopes, anything from the stock market to the business venture to just wasteful living. He wasted what he had. It doesn't tell us how long it took. It doesn't tell us on what exactly, but a style of life where there was no return and there was no sound use of what he had. And he spent everything, and circumstances changed in verse 14 and wherever he was, as things do change. He says here a famine came in the land and he found out he didn't have the resources to meet that. You know, famine could have been a weather famine, weather-related famine. Maybe it was an economic downturn where everybody suffered a certain degree. And there was no social safety net for him to fall into like we have today, and even with what we have today, some people don't fall into that net as well.

And so we're told here that he began to, he went hungry. He had spent all his money on the glitz and the glamour, whatever he saw as he walked by the window store or surfed the internet and thought that he had to have. He had it, had the money, he spent it. It's amazing how some people take money and just watch how people have value money. I mean, some people, whatever they have, a nickel, they're going to spend a nickel. They have a nickel, they're going to spend 25 cents with credit card, with the help of a credit card. But there's no thought of putting it aside. It's living from hand to mouth. It's amazing to me over the years to see people who live that way. I wasn't raised that way. I was raised to pay your bills, put some away. Pay your bills, put some away. Live within your means. I run across people who, you know, they get a check, boom, it's gone. And by Wednesday they're broke, wait until Friday. And there's nothing in reserve. And they live like that. And you see stories of that. And I just can't relate to it. But this is what this guy did.

And then he became to be in one. And it got so bad, as it tells us here, that he started working in the fields working with pigs, which is a pretty ignominious way to make a living. And of course, a Jew listening to this in Israel in the first century would realize, man, he's really crossed the line here. But he went there and it's interesting, in verse 16, he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs ate, but nobody even gave him that.

I don't know if you've ever been around a pig pen and you see the pods that are left over. I used to go to my grandfather's farm and he had pigs. And the pigs are right outside the back door, literally a few steps away from the kitchen. And I would kind of nose around in the pig barn and see what those pigs left behind. And there's always, you know, there's the stench of it. And I can smell it to this day. But when I read this and about the pods that whatever the pigs ate or didn't eat and what's left over, and he couldn't even get that. He was pretty low down. That's pretty bad. And that's when he came to himself, which is another interesting phrase in verse 17. He came to himself and he recognized that his servants back home had enough bread to spare more than they needed. And here he was in his foreign land, hungry, away from where he was supposed to be. And so he said, I will rise and go. So he went back and he said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You. He says, this is what I'm going to say. And I'm no longer worthy to be called Your son. Make me like one of Your hired servants. You know, this is also a story about the attitude, the heart of a servant. Because the younger son didn't have that attitude. He wanted his inheritance. He was not going to hang around and work at the family business to keep it growing so that in time his inheritance would have been bigger because of his effort. He wanted it and he took it. He didn't have a serving attitude. And he finally came to realize that through the circumstances that even the servants in his dad's home had more than he did. And that probably crashed into his consciousness as much as anything else. And so he came to himself and decided that he was going to go home.

And he said, I will arise and go. I will arise and go. And he did after he came to himself.

And he decided to go home as a servant, as a Christlike servant, willing to do whatever was necessary. And that's where his attitude was. That's what he was going to do.

But, you know, as the story goes on, when he was in verse 20, it says, when he was still a great way off, his father saw him. And it means his father was looking for him and he heard word about it, that he was coming. Somehow along the way the word got to him and he knew that he was coming. And he had compassion, the father did, ran and fell on his neck and kissed him, his son.

The father said to his servants, the younger son never had the opportunity to say, Dad, put me to work in the fields, put me to work on the shop floor, just, you know, punching out these, whatever these items are, one piece at a time, 500 an hour, you know, one of the most boring jobs in the world. I was in a manufacturing plant last month over here in Ohio, John Miller's, when we were doing Beyond Today, and John runs a large manufacturing plant over in, oh, New Bedford, Ohio, Holmes County, you know, where Holmes County is over there.

And he was showing me all the manufacturing stuff that they do and he was telling me a story of, they had one press that they, you know, just stamps out pieces of things. And they hired one person to come in and do that job. And it was a brainless job, brain dead job, but it was just basically just pressing out parts and pieces one at a time all day long. And that's how this one individual got started. And there's a lot of other jobs in that plant that require expertise. But it was kind of like one of those entry jobs. And he, you know, you start some places like that. This, the son was willing to do that, but his father never gave him the chance. Never gave him the chance because what he said, he said, look, bring out the best robe.

Put a ring on his hands and shoes on his feet. Now the robe was a symbol of honor and the ring was a symbol of authority and the shoes were a symbol of freedom.

That's what those mean. He was decked out. He didn't have to, in a sense, I guess the father knew that he already had the right attitude. And he didn't even get a chance to ask for it.

He got his shoes. They didn't even have shoes. But he had that freedom.

And this is where the story comes to this particular point. An attitude of a young man and an attitude of a father.

Now, I mentioned that this is a parallel to a story found back in the book of Genesis. Put your ribbon or place marker there and let's turn back to Genesis. We'll come back.

Genesis chapter 32.

The story of Jacob, again, is a well-known story to us. Let me just briefly review it.

Jacob, the son of Isaac, brother of Esau. And earlier on, Jacob, by deceit, with his mother's help, stole the blessing from his older brother Esau and tricked his dad with some meat.

And he was blind and couldn't discern between the two boys. And with his mother's help, Jacob concocted it and fabricated this lie to really steal a position. You could call it the checkbook.

It was, you know, it was the whole thing of going into a lawyer and having the whole will rewritten or going into the bank and rearranging all the documents to where he had control over everything. It was tantamount to that in this particular society by Jacob usurping that blessing from his father over Esau, which created a big eruption with Esau, who threatened to kill him.

And Jacob had to flee. He had to leave home, too. And so where he went was to his Uncle Laban's area, which would have been far to the north of where they were in what is the modern area of the state of Israel. Laban, his area probably is in the area of modern-day Lebanon, so to the north of the border of Israel today. And there he started to work for his Uncle Laban. And you know the story there, how he wound up with two wives and two concubines and a whole bunch of kids.

And Laban tricked him out of wages, held back and, you know, reneged on their particular agreements after he'd already deceived him about Rachel and Leo and that episode there. Fascinating stories in the book of Genesis about families and about life. And they're repeated every generation in virtually every culture. These are eternal stories about how of human nature and how people treat one another and how people react. Well, finally, Jacob, after a number of years, where he finally had to use his wits to gain, you know, build up his accounts with the herds, and he practiced some unique animal husbandry acts there to increase his herds. And he finally came to a point where he said, you know what? I will arise and go. He came to himself in the story and decided it was time to leave Laban because, you know, Laban's family was growing. He just foresaw more conflict with Laban's children and the lands and the flocks and everything else there.

You know, you had kind of a unique, you know, Jacob was family, but he was a nephew. And he'd come in from a different area, and he'd married now the daughters of Laban. But those daughters had other brothers, and they had wives. Oh, they had wives. You know how wives can get at times when there's a lot of goods and land and money and this and that and family grows bigger. And Jacob saw that there was just going to be endless intrigue and problems there. So he wisely realized, you know, whatever it is back in my father's house, it's going to be far better. And so he goes to his wives and said, let's pack it up. Let's go. And they began this journey back south. He didn't know how he was going to be met by his brother Esau. This was a number of years later, whether the bitterness and the hatred was still there and his life would still be in jeopardy. And so he made certain preparations and precautions for that. But along the way, as he's making this journey back, this very long journey, he's going back home. He has come to himself where he says, I will arise and go. And he's going back to his father Isaac. And, of course, God has been dealing with Jacob all along in this whole story. On his initial flight from home, that is where he had the the vision where he laid his head down around the area of Bethel. And he had this vision of the ladder reaching to heaven and angels going up and down the ladder. That was years earlier.

And he made certain, God made certain promises to Jacob. Jacob made certain commitments that he had to kind of grow into. And yet Jacob still had a lot to learn. And so he comes home and he's on his way back. And we come into Genesis chapter 32. And he's on, he goes on his way. And he's met by the angels of God, verse 1 talks about. And Jacob saw them and he said, this is God's camp. And he called the place Mahanaim. And Jacob sent messengers to Esau, the land of Seir in the country of Edom, which would have been to the east of the Jordan River, what is modern-day Jordan.

He commanded them, saying, Thus speak, Thus speak, Thus to my Lord Esau. And so he sent a message ahead to his brother Esau. Verse 7 tells us that Jacob was quite nervous about what he was walking into and the reception that he might have. And so he divided his people up so that if there were attacks that he wouldn't leave lose everything. And he says to God, verse 9, O God of my father, Abraham, and my father, Isaac, the Lord, who said to me, return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you. So you see that Jacob is, he's going back to his father's home, but he is also involved in this relationship with God himself, his spiritual father. And he asks for help and deliverance, verse 11, from his brother, the hand of his brother. So he makes this prayer. He says, I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For you said I'll surely treat you well and make your descendants as the sand of the sea. Jacob never forgot the promise God made to him, and he's calling for it there. And so he builds an encampment again, verse 13, and takes care for what he does have, sends his flocks and herds on across the Jabach River. And verse 21 tells us that he lodged that night in the camp. And then verse 22 begins a very interesting story from Jacob's point of view here. He arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants and his 11 sons, and crossed over the fort of Jabach. With Jabach as a river that runs through Jordan, the northern part of what is Jordan today, he took them, sent them over, and he sent over what he had.

And he was left alone on the other bank, it appears. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. So Jacob gets into this wrestling match with what is a unique story in the Bible and in Jacob's life. And we know from as the story progresses that he's really wrestling with God, that the man is God. And it's a wrestling match. And it just jumps right into it. And it's one of these stories that as they were told and as Moses wrote it down, it was a well-known story and episode in the life of Jacob. And when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, or the man or God said, let me go for the day breaks. But Jacob replied, I'm not gonna let you go. I want a blessing. Now this, you have to read between the lines in this particular story perhaps to grasp what this is wrestling with God, spirit being in the form of a man at this point in time. God was playing with Jacob.

The wrestling match was, you know, kind of like a big adult, you and I, his fathers might make with their smaller children, we're gonna let them pin us for a while. We're gonna let them win, if you will, and stay in the game, stay in the match, because we're having fun. It's not that God was having fun with Jacob, but, you know, he kind of plays with him there in a sense by putting his socket out of joint as they are wrestling all night. And this whole story, which literally happened, is really a larger story to tell us something about a relationship with God, because I think it fits into the life of Jacob at this point to where Jacob stayed with him all night, and he wouldn't let him go until he received a blessing from him. He said, I will not let you go, verse 26, until you bless me. And so he said to him, what's your name? Jacob. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you've struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.

Jacob had been struggling in his life by his decisions, which were some of them bad, helped by his mother. But he had to live with the consequences. He was struggling with a bad uncle who cheated him, robbed him, lied to him. You don't ever want to work for someone who won't pay you or lies to you. People who get hired into a job on certain promises and find that they are not met at a certain time, it's better just to take that last paycheck or whatever and go and find an honest person or an honest place to work for, because there will be nothing but problems there. Jacob had to struggle with that. He was struggling with himself and with his life.

And in the process, just like you and I, we're struggling with God. We're struggling with having a relationship with God that is really meaningful, lasting, and satisfying, and productive. Jacob hadn't achieved that yet. No more than the son who took his inheritance from his dad had when he took what he had and left out of his own self-will. He, too, was struggling.

Jacob was struggling. And this wrestling all night with God is a fascinating story.

And he said, tell me, I pray, what is your name? And he's in verse 29. And he said, why is it that you ask about my name? And he blessed them there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I've seen God face to face and my life is preserved. Just as he crossed over Peniel, the son rose on him and he limped on his hip. He had seen God face to face and he lived to tell about it. His life was preserved. He, as the son came up that morning, the struggle there on the bank of the river was over. But Jacob came to an awakening of his life and, most importantly, his relationship with God. He began to see God in a unique way. Now, he went on home, you read through the story, and he met up with Esau. And Esau had mellowed himself for the years and they had a family reunion. And Jacob was able to reunite with his father, Isaac, before he died.

And yet, Jacob's life still had struggle. His sons caused no end of problems. And, of course, we get into the Joseph story, where his brothers sold Joseph off. So, Jacob still had to struggle with himself, with the consequences of the decisions that he'd made ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and how that was still coming to roost, coming home to roost, in his family, through his sons and their actions, and the torment, the anguish in his mind that he had to deal with. But he had come to a point where he had now the help, through a relationship with God, to deal with it in a better way. You know, conversion doesn't change all of our, solve all of our problems. It doesn't remove our human nature overnight. It doesn't change the other man. It doesn't give us a spotless, sin-free life from that point forward. It forgives us up to that moment. But we still are subject to the pulls of the flesh. And if God's Spirit's with us, if we have been given that as his children, then we have something to help us with, in our continual struggle in our life. Jacob came to that point. And the story of the son who left his father's home and came to himself and came back tells that as well. Jacob struggled all night.

And I've come to look at that story as an example for us in terms of our struggle with God. We have to come to a point where we are willing to go to hand-to-hand wrestling with God, if you will.

Not combat and not in an adversarial role, because that's not what is told about in the story.

Jacob hung on to God, and he wouldn't let him go. Give me a blessing. In our relationship with God, we have to come to a point where we are willing to engage in a kind of an embrace, a lock of arms, where we won't let go of him. And we will pray and we will study and we will be faithful, and we will hang on to the God we know, to the Father we know.

It took Jacob decades to come to that. Jacob was not a young man when he had this all-night affair. He was probably past 60 years of age when he did this at this point. So he was not a teenager and he was not a young adult, not even middle-aged.

But he had learned a lot through all of those experiences.

And coming before God in that way was where he was.

You know, after whatever number of years you and I have been in the faith, we still have lessons to learn.

Have you come to the point where you're willing to lock arms with God and, in a sense, struggle with God in a righteous way to receive a blessing or to receive understanding or to move forward? Have we come to a point where we recognize that we're tired of eating the spiritual pods that swine feet on and we are ready to go back to God and be a son of God?

And we have to start all over again.

When you go back to Luke 15 and you see that story, as I said earlier, it's really the story of a father's love.

It's more of the story of that than it is a prodigal son. It's the story of a father's love.

And it is the story of the love of God the Father.

The Father here, just as our Heavenly Father, is willing to forgive.

And waiting and watching to forgive. Waiting and watching for us to come back, to arise and go. And to... as he was there, he was watching and he was ready to forgive.

That's what that story really is all about. Now, you know, the story goes on here and there's another character in this and that's the older brother. That's the older brother.

The contrast to that of Esau, here, because this older brother in the story of Luke 15, he has his problems. He cannot abide his brother coming back. And when he sees the party that is thrown for for his brother, he gets angry. He wouldn't go in in verse 28. And the father went to him and begged him to come in.

Be a part of this. Welcome your brother back. And he said these many years, I've punched the clock at 7 a.m., worked overtime, made up for what had to be divided off to him, and I've been here every year.

I've been... I have been serving you. I didn't transgress your commandment, but you didn't give me a young goat that I might have a party with my friends. As soon as he comes back, the one who... your son, he says, he devoured your livelihood with harlots. You killed the fatted calf for him. He's just got a bad attitude. He's got a royal bad attitude, doesn't he?

But that son... that older son doesn't have an attitude of service. He is one of those attitudes that just sap the joy out of life and out of Christianity. There are people like that. This brother is one of them, and epitomizes people who will sap the love, the joy, out of our calling. He had had years of service, but he had done it in the wrong spirit, the wrong attitude. He did not have a servant's heart. You know, we will become Christ-like servants, or we will evaporate and fade into nothingness in this church. And all of our years of service, all of our years of whatever, if they bring us to an attitude like this son, and we demonstrate a resentment, then we've done it all out of legalism, without joy, without love, without a proper approach. This son, the older son, had no sympathy for his younger son. He was self-righteous, legalistic, pharisaical. He was just a bad guy.

That's — he really had a black heart, where he could not see that his brother had changed and welcomed him back. He couldn't forgive. A forgiving spirit is a black-hearted spirit, and it has no place among the people of God. It has no place in our relationship with God. He had no sympathy. He even had a nasty mind.

Remember, he said to here — he said, your son — he's talking to his dad — your son not my brother. Your son did this. And there was no mention of harlots in the story until the older son brings up harlots. He's probably wishing that he'd had the opportunity.

It's frankly what he was — I think he had such a twisted mind that he was jealous of whatever sins his brother had reveled in over those years. And maybe he was thinking, maybe I missed out.

You've got to be careful when sexual sins are brought up. What's going on in a mind that wants to revel in that? Sometimes it's a twisted thinking that has really, really bad, bad avenues and holes. You just don't want to go in there. This older son had a nasty mind. I think that living with harlots is what he wanted to do at that point.

You know, there's some points to consider here.

First one is that it's easier to confess to God than to man.

In the story of Jacob, he's coming back and he's talking to God along the way, and he's trusting in God. It's much easier to confess to God than to man. We don't know how all humans are going to receive us. There are certain times when human beings have to be involved and deal with it, but it's much easier to confess to God. And God is more merciful than a person who is wrapped up in self-righteousness, their own point of view.

And these two stories show us that the love of God is broader than the love of a man, and that God can forgive when men refuse to forgive. But that all four of these points speak to the Father with whom we desire and should have a relationship, because, again, going back, this is really a story of a loving Father.

And Jacob himself was going back to the arms of a loving Father, and he himself, by that point in time, had become more so that type of an individual himself in his life. But both stories point us really to a relationship with God, which is the most important relationship that we can ever have in life, and to whatever we may need to go through, no matter how long we've been a part of the faith of God, the Church of God, walking by this way of life, at certain times we all need to check ourselves. And maybe this is a time for all of us, and I do think even within the broader Church as a whole, for us all to check our relationship with our Father. What is its state? What is its condition? Do we really have a relationship with our Father? Have we arisen and gone to our Father?

Have we wrestled with Him all night? Are we willing to lock ourselves into that relationship from which we don't want to let go until we get a blessing, or we get an understanding, or we finally get it all figured out as we've never had it figured out before?

You know, we have gone through a horrendous period in recent years in the United Church of God, in our sphere of the Church of God, the Body of Christ. And what's taken place in recent months has come down to relationships. Relationships.

Some people left to go to another organization because of the relationship they may have had with a minister, or another person within their particular congregation, or someone in the next congregation, or in the next state, or across the country. There's a family connection.

And some people didn't go because they had a relationship with a minister, or with somebody else. I've had people say, well, Mr. McNeely, if you had resigned, and you'd gone, we would have probably gone with you. You know what my answer to that was? And is? You better not. That would be wrong.

That would be wrong. Now, there are some people that had I resigned and gone with another fellowship. They would have stayed right where they were.

But why? You see, as we all survey the scene these days, we can see, I could have told you certain individuals that I've known throughout the church, were they going to fall?

Are they going to go with a new organization? Are they going to stay with United? What are they going to do? And for the most part, I've called them right. If you have missed, some stayed with United that I thought would go because they had a relationship, family, friend, or whatever, and whatever. What's the most important relationship? What's kept you in the faith?

What's kept you as part of the United Church of God?

What is the relationship that keeps you where you are?

Is it the person sitting next to you?

Is it the one someone else in the congregation? Is it someone someplace else?

Or is it God?

I said before about the uniqueness of our congregation here. We've had about everybody covered over the years. Various organizations of the Church of God of the last 30 years, anyway. People that have gone here and there. And we've had quite an interesting mixture of relationships here. And we've had a level of toleration, tolerance, if you will, that I think by and large served us well.

But as I surveyed all of this and my own reactions, because, you know, you could say, I stayed here because of a relationship, or I didn't go there because of of a bad relationship or whatever. I think at some point, you and I always are going to have to get to the point where we say, where did we, why do we believe and do what we do? Is it because of our relationship with God? Why do we keep the Sabbath? Why do we obey Him? Is it because we have risen and gone to our Father? And that's the most important one. You know, there are reasons that Christ said, don't let a man take your crown.

The relationships are important. We all know that. Fellowship and, you know, joyful relationships of people of like mind, of good faith, good morals, manners, good ethics, good people, all of those are important. We certainly, you don't want to hang out with bad dudes.

You don't want to hang out in a toxic atmosphere. None of us want to do that either.

But, do we do what we do or where we are because of our relationship with God? If that is number one, then that's going, that is the most important one. And, you know, it's important to be able to work through any bad relationship that you might have with any minister or with any other member. Those of us that have been around for enough years, we know how people can come and go. And even people change, believe it or not.

Ministers change. Some of them get better. We all change, and hopefully we all get better. And in the process, we learn to love one another. And in the process, we learn to love God because we see God's Spirit working in someone else or in us. And sometimes you have to wrestle with that. You may have to wrestle with yourself, wrestle in a congregation. You might even have to wrestle with a minister. But what will be the end result of your wrestling when the day breaks? Will you have a blessing because you have practiced ethical, righteous, godly behavior, ethical, righteous, godly behavior, not sought to divide, not sought to lie, but sought to obey and trust and serve, to have a servant's heart?

That's the ultimate relationship we've got to have, a godly relationship.

Now, all the others will come into line. All there will be struggles, but we'll get through them and we'll learn. The truth, the word of God stands. These two stories teach us of a father who's always there and looking over the horizon for us to come to him.

That's what is important for us to learn from the parable of the son who took his inheritance or the story of Jacob. He's there. And that's the most important relationship. Our decision is will we rise and go? Go to him and let him work with us.

On a weekend like Father's Day or Mother's Day, which should be every day in reality, there are some important lessons for us to learn. But I'll leave those five words with you to ponder and to think about today. Will you arise and go to God? That's where we need to be.

That's where we need to be. And when we do, we've got the right relationship and everything will work together.