We’re in week four of our January series on “Coming Home: Bringing Back the Wanderer.”  And this week we’re going to look at the wanderer we’re most familiar with.  I’m calling them the willful wanderers because their wandering is usually intentional.  Last week I said that most of us know someone who’s a wanderer.  Well, almost all of us know this wanderer … and that’s because we usually call them a prodigal.

The Gospel of Luke contains the story of the most famous wanderer in the Bible.  So this week, I want to answer some important questions about what’s really going on in The Parable of the Prodigal Son.  You can find his story in Luke 15:11-24, which would be good to read before Sunday.  Of all the wanderers, this is the one we know the best.  This is the one where we immediately think of a name … a son, a daughter, a parent, a cousin, friend, neighbor, coworker, even grandchildren. 

A few weeks ago, I told you that this sermon series was not going to tell you that God will use you to bring that person home.  Too often, at some level, for our prodigals, we have been part of their struggle, a source of their pain, a barrier to their belief.  And so, more often than not, God will use someone else to reach the prodigal most on our hearts.  But what can we do?  And if they do come home, how do we react?  What do we do then?  After all, our prodigals have hurt us too.  So I’m also going to talk a little bit about that this Sunday.  I hope you’ll find it helpful.  See you Sunday, Dr. Dave

PS – This is Sanctity of Life Sunday and so we want to be praying for that in our church.  We want to be a church that’s completely pro-life from cradle to grave and treats all people as made in the Image of God.  In light of that, we usually ask people to make an extra gift for the work of the PCA Ministerial Relief Fund.  We’ll tell you more on Sunday.