As you may know, from my earlier post that, my father-in-law Frank passed away on March, 9th. It has been a hard time for my wife and me, as we deal with his death, estate, and house all at the same time. The best aspect of this whole process is that we know that he is with our Lord and Savior.

My wife had a chance to spend time with him as a daughter. When Frank was placed on hospice he requested a visit from the hospice pastor. When Pastor Greg was with him they talked about sports, Detroit Tiger, Franks shared many life stories with Pastor Greg and things he should have done differently. When Pastor asked about salvation Frank stated “it does not seem authentic to switch to the winning team in the final inning”. My wife sat there listening to their conversation without interjecting.

A few days later God placed on her heart to share share the “Prodigal Son” story from Luke chapter 15 with her father.

¹¹And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹²And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. ¹³Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. ¹⁴And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
¹⁷ “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! ¹⁸I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ ²⁰And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. ²¹And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²²But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. ²³And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. ²⁴For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
²⁵ “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. ²⁷And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, ²⁹but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. ³²It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.’”

Luke 15:11-32 ESV

She shared how that how the older son was a depiction of religious people and that Frank had only seen the action of the older son and caused him to not what to be a part of the Father’s house. She also shared from the same chapter “The Parable of the Lost Sheep” and “The Parable of the Lost Coin” All three of these parables have these things in common something was lost and then found and they celebrated the recovery of the lost item. Frank’s eyes were full of hope and thanked Stacy for sharing and said “I love you” Stacy replied “I love you more” and Frank said, “I think you do”. For the rest of the time, we had with him, his countenance change and he had hope in his eyes.

God began to show me we have to shed our religious exterior and embrace the ones that were lost. This is harder with the ones that were part of the father’s house but have run off, than the ones that have never been a part of us.

We need to be like the father who while his youngest son still had the stench of the pigs on him was embraced and love uncondictionally. The father never asked his son to clean up before placing a clean rob on him, or sandals on his feet. He made him a son and gave him authority with no hoops to jump through, and then they celebrated.

How does this look today, as some of you already know I work at a skatepark in Battle Creek, where 85 to 90% are far from God.

The Embrace: We have to look past both the natural as well as the spiritual aromas of these young men. After a hard session of skating they have melted away any deodorant that may have used that day. One day I was standing near the front door greeting every skater as they left for the night. One of the young men asked if he could give me a hug. I willingly and with a glad heart open my arms, we embraced for about a minute. After all the skaters leave we have an after-hours bible study with any that might want to stay. the rest of the night I could still smell him on me, it didn’t spell that best but I realized that this was a pleasing aroma to God and began to weep. Sometime later this young man accepted Jesus, and I wonder did the embrace, acceptance, love of a father help.

The Rob: The father clothed his son and did not leave him exposed. “Love covers a multitude of sins” 1 Peter 4:8. These skaters have issues and vices as we all do but some of theirs are not socially acceptable. In the skate culture, we have skaters that are pot-smoking, foul mouth, rude, to name a few issues. We can stand there and judge them, calling them out every sin we see, but is that clothing them in love or shame. They need to have a cover of love and not be judged all the time as the world does. Most skaters have been beaten down, lost nearly everything, some without a father, sound a lot like a prodigal son.

The Sandals: Ephesians 6:15 “and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;” We create an environment of peace that these skaters might not have anywhere else. We are always looking for the right opportunity to share the gospel. We have a skate crew that comes to our skate park from Grand Rapids to ride, one day this crew went to another skate ministry in Holland. One of our staff member, Peter, also work and visits this ministry in Holland. A GR crew member asked Peter, “Are these two skate parks own by the same person?” Peter replied, “No, why do you ask?”. The crew member told him “When we skate in GR there is so much hatred and rivalry, but when we are here we feel accepted – they both have good vibes, so I thought they must be own by the same people.”. Can you give another person a new pair a sandal so there walk can be different?

The Ring: What authority are you willing to give? The Father gave unlimited authority to the younger son. When we are having our skate church and we see the skaters (14-17yrs old) messing around, and distracting the group I will take one of them aside after the message is done and talk with them. I will buy them a cold drink and snacks and let them know that the younger skaters are watching them and they are leading them if they know it or not. “you can lead them the right way or the wrong way, either way, you are responsible for them.”. The next week I will see a great difference in their actions. Do we give them the keys to the skate park, no we give authority by what they can handle? We pulled aside one of our older scooter riders (24yrs old) and told him that he could lead the younger one, he did and now all of them do as he does, so if something needs to change in the park we will talk with the leader and its changes in the whole park.

Celebrate: This is the fun part! any little advance forward is an advance in the right direction. This is instinctive in that skate culture, if someone lands a trick for the first time you will hear the park erupt into excitement. One time we told the member of skate church “if you memorized 1 Corinthians 13 the whole chapter that we would give them a new skateboard.”. We had 4 skaters do that the next week.

From these skaters, bad personal decisions to difficult life experiences they have to build up walls that keep the hurt and people out. Just as the prodigal son did, he would rather be a servant than a son. How do we bring down such strong and fortified walls? We can look a Jericho for inspiration and how did the Israelite being down that wall.

³You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. ⁴And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. ⁵It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”

¹⁰Now Joshua had commanded the people, saying, “You shall not shout or make any noise with your voice, nor shall a word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I say to you, ‘Shout!’ Then you shall shout.”

Joshua 6:3-5, 10 ESV

For six-day, they walked around the wall once, and on the seventh day, they went around seven-time without a single word from their mouth. The Israelites spend time surveying the wall not know what was going to happen. We need to use these same tactics to break down the fortified wall, spending consistent time and not speaking, judging, complaining. When you hear the blast from the Holy Spirit you figuratively shout, the love of God. This might be sharing the gospel, giving some life experience, or just a hug. The Jericho walls will come down.

APPLICATION

• Find the community where you can show unconditionally love
• Spend consistent time in the community you are trying to reach