The Walk That Makes All The Difference

Finding Out Who We Are

Luke 15:11-20 , 21, 22-24

September 26, 2002

I. I want to talk about something this week that applies to everybody, and I know that’s hard to do but this is a sure fire thing.

A. I heard someone else talking about something similar last week and I stole some of the things that they said.

B. There was a movie not too long ago called "Bourne Identity." I didn’t see the movie and I am not saying that seeing it will improve your spiritual life in any way.

C. But the movie was about a man that didn’t know who he was and the whole movie was about him trying to find his true identity. He wanted to know who he really was.

D. And the character in that movie is in a way everyone of us sitting here today. Everyone of us in some way, are trying to discover who we really are.

E. Who we really are is who God created us to be. And a couple of weeks ago when I made the statement in my sermon about Jesus seeing the woman who was caught in the act of adultery, for who he created her to be and not for what she had become, there were a lot of people who commented about that statement later.

F. Well, I think that is because every one of us knows that there is really a better version of us than what we are living.

G. Every one of us knows that there is a better us in there somewhere, than what we are letting out.

II. There are a lot of people in this world who will say to you, "that the bible is a book full of Self-righteous people, whose lives are in no way relevant to the way that we live our lives today."

A. And I can tell you for sure that if someone tells you that, you can be certain of one thing, and that one thing is, those people have never read the bible.

B. They may have read some of the bible, and they may have heard someone quote some of the passages in the Bible, but if they can make a statement that false they have never really read the bible.

C. In the book of Genesis alone you can prove that statement to be wrong because there are some very real people in that book that have some VERY real problems.

D. As a matter of act there are some really messed up people in the bible.

E. Don’t believe me? Well lets look at just a few.

1. Cain is jealous of his brother Abel and kills him.

2. Lamech introduces polygamy to the world.

3. Noah who is called the most righteous man of his time gets drunk and curses his grandson.

4. Lot when he is faced with a whole city of men who want to have sex with the males visitors in his home, decides that the thing to do is send his daughters out to them to have sex with, and then his daughters later get him drunk and get pregnant by him. And then we are told that he is the most righteous man in all of Sodom!

5. Abraham plays favorites between his sons Isaac and Ishmael and their descendants are still killing each other because of it in the Middle east today.

6. Isaac plays favorites between his sons, they hate each other for twenty years and their descendants still fight each other to this day.

7. Jacob plays favorites between his eleven sons and Joseph and his brothers want to kill him, and end up selling him into slavery in a foreign country.

F. And if you think there were no marital issues in those times:

1. Abraham has sex with his wife’s servant and sends her and her son by him off into the wilderness, both at his wife’s request.

2. Isaac and his wife get into a contest about which son is going to get the father’s blessing, and she plots with the son to deceive the father.

3. Jacob ends up with two wives and they get into a contest to see who can have the most babies, and he ends up sleeping with both of their servants at their request!

4. Jacob’s first born son sleeps with is concubine and his other son Judah has sex with his own daughter-in-law, and she dresses up like a prostitute and he hires her out, and she did that because Judah had went back on his promises to her, because his first two sons were so wicked that God killed them both.

G. Now, folks you will not find these people on Andy Griffith, They are a psychiatrist’s nightmare, and James Dobson and Dr.. Phil together would not stand a chance in a room with this bunch.