The Outsider Syndrome and the Kingdom Welcome

If Satan can't con us into trying to be the center of the universe and make everything and everybody revolve around us, if he can't persuade us to try to be God, or if, having tried to be God, the tent blows up in our face as it always does, eventually, then Satan comes in with a new ploy. He tries to convince us that as far as God is concerned, we're outsiders, and we're always going to be outsiders. Other people get their prayers answered.

Maybe other people get revelations from God. Maybe other people get visions of heaven. Maybe other people get power and grace and joy filling their hearts from God.

But our lot in life is just to be outsiders. Oh yeah, there was a time when I experienced some of those things too, but it didn't last. Now it seems that my lot in life is to stand in the cold, in the dark, on the outside and look through the window while other people sit at the Father's table and are warmed by his cozy fire and blessed by his joy.

Now it's this outsider syndrome which is really preventing many of us from becoming truly connected with what God is doing on the earth right now and what God is doing in this place as well as many other places. You know, we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and then when God sends the kingdom in, things begin to happen and we see it. For some strange reason, we just kind of pull back and we become wallflowers and we watch from a distance because we somehow don't really believe that we could be part of this.

I'd like to, but I just can't. People don't realize, looking at me, how it really is with me, you know, I don't really belong. They look at me, they think I fit in, but I really don't.

I mean, here I am, I'm standing here with my hymnal singing this hymn, you know, and they think I belong here, but I feel like I'm from out of space, I'm a foreigner. You know, I'd really like to be part of what's going on, but that's how many times we feel. We wish we could, but we can't, and the question we have to answer, see, is why do I feel like an outsider? Is it that God has shut his heart against me? Is it that these people over here are looking at me as if I've got leprosy? Or is it something inside me? You know, and truly, the problem is not in God, and the problem is really not in these other people.

You know, I feel like I can't fit in with them, they seem to get along with each other, somehow, they can function. You know, they don't seem to get their feelings hurt like I do, or, you know, they seem to understand. Somehow or other, they can seem to get comfortable, but I feel like God, like I'm totally out of place, I just don't fit.

But the, you know, the cause of the problem, the source of this feeling that I have, is not in God, and it's not in these people, it's in me. I'm sick. I've got this outsider syndrome, and I have to be cured.

See, before we can go out and boldly proclaim the gospel, you know, and tell people that Jesus died on that cross, and rose from the grave, and opened the doorway back into paradise, be able to say that with any kind of power, before we can go out into the streets and lanes of Detroit and its suburbs, and compel people, draw them into the banquet table of a king, welcome them, make them really feel welcome, before we can do any of that, we have to know the welcome of the kingdom in our own hearts. We have to know that. We have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our days as outsiders have come to an end.

Reading from Luke chapter 15, starting at verse 11, and Jesus said, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had, and took his journey into a far country.

And there, he squandered his property in loose living. When he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate.

No one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, but while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him, kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet.

Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and make merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

Now to look carefully at what point and in what way this younger son became an outsider. You know, was it something the father did? Was it something the other brother did? Or was it himself? Did the father walk into his bedroom one morning and say, I've had enough of you. You're lazy.

You're immoral. You're no good. Get out of my house.

No. The son decided to go. Give me my share of the inheritance.

Let me have what I have coming to me. The son decides that he wants to live his own life, run his own show, be his own god. And so the father lets him have everything he asks for and out he goes.

And as long as this younger son is able to convince himself that he's his own god, things are okay. He doesn't feel like an outsider. He's at the center of the universe.

Everything's fine. Until his money runs out. When his money runs out, he starts losing his friends too.

Always happens. And now with his money gone and most of his friends gone, maybe all of his friends gone, he begins at last to think once more about the father's house. But now he thinks that the father's house has something really beyond his reach.

I mean, I can't go back there. I've messed up too far. I've done too much.

He's not going to let me back in there. I've sinned against heaven and before my father. I'm not even worthy to be called his son.

I'm an outsider. So he keeps struggling on, thinking about how it used to be. That he used to have enough to eat.

And how it would be better back there. But he keeps on going until finally it dawns on him that even the lowliest, this hired servant that his father has, has a lot more than he does. And so he decides, okay, I'm going to go back.

But I'll go back as a hired servant. I'll hire myself to my father. And I'll still have more than I do now.

And so he goes. And notice he goes, not saying, I'm a son. I'm going to claim my rights.

I know I spent the living, but I'm still his son. None of that. He goes back feeling like an outsider.

Satisfied simply to be a hired hand. But he swallows his pride and he swallows his shame. And even as an outsider, he goes back home.

And then he gets the surprise of his life. While he's yet at a distance, his father saw him. And had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father doesn't even pay attention.

Says to the servants, get the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand. Shoes on his feet.

Kill the battered cat. Notice that. He treats him like his son.

Right away. Welcomes him as a son. Restores him as a son.

Honors him as a son. And that's exactly what the father wants to do with each of us. Today.

Now the lesson from this younger son is. Don't let your feeling of being an outsider keep you from coming back to the father. Never mind how much like an outsider you feel.

Come anyway. Just come. Many of us are really hindered by this outsider syndrome.

We feel, you know, just so unworthy and so messed up and so unclean and so out of it. That we don't even have the heart to draw near. But the message in this is, come anyway.

Come and offer to be a hired servant. Come confessing that you feel outside and unworthy and unclean and worthless and useless. But come.

Just come. Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants. Just take me on. Let me be your hired servant.

And what does the father say? He turns to the angels. And he says, look who came home. My daughter.

My son. Go get the best robe. You know the robe.

The robe that was woven by the blood of my son. Jesus. Get the ring that was, that gold that was fired in the furnace of his suffering.

Go bring those shoes that he wore. They'll fit. And then he looks us in the eye and he says, you're not an outsider.

You're my daughter. You're my son. You.

And. Your sins were paid for by the blood of my only begotten. You're forgiven.

You're healed. Now we're going to have a dinner. Bring on the music.

Let's celebrate. Now his elder son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him. Your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted cat because he has received him safe and sound.

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and treated him. But he answered his father.

Lowell, these many years I have served you and I have never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted cat.

And he said to him, son, son, you're always with me and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad for this. Your brother was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found. Here's a son who never left the father's home. And everything the father had was his.

Still he felt like an outsider. He was convinced in his heart that the father didn't really love him. All these years I have served you.

I never transgressed your command. You never even gave me a little goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But then when this son of yours comes, not my brother, your son, who devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted cat.

The father says to him, son, you've always been with me. And all that is mine is yours. You could have taken that fatted cat any time you wanted.

You need money? Your name is on the checkbook. Write yourself a check. It's all yours.

It was all his. All the time it was his. He belonged to this man.

He belonged to the father. And all the father's possessions belonged to this son. Yet he felt like an outsider.

Why? What was wrong? In order to live in the kingdom, and to know we're in the kingdom, and to rejoice that we're in the kingdom, we have to carry in our hearts the kingdom welcome. If this man had had a welcome in his heart for his brother, the father's love for him would have burned in his heart. See, but because all the time the brother's gone, he doesn't care, there's no welcome in his heart for his brother.

The love of the father for this son dies not in the father's heart, but in the son's heart. He's the one who's blocking it. And so, for those of us who have been in the father's house for years and years and years and years, and still feel like outsiders, the one thing we need to do is get that spirit of welcome.

Repent of our hardness of heart and get that spirit of welcome in our hearts today. And immediately, they'll be singing and dancing in the father's house for us. We have already entered in to a season of harvest which I believe will be the most abundant that we've ever seen.

We've never seen anything like it in our lifetimes. It's already in progress. And we've been called to be part of it.

To go out with a word that's absolutely bold. A word that will be confirmed by the hand of the father with signs following, signs of mercy, and signs of judgment, and signs of hope, healings, blessings. But before we can do this, we have to be sure of this outsider sickness.

We have to know the kingdom welcome. And we have to show that welcome to each other. That has to be absolutely clear.

All the lack of welcome, all the outside feeling that we have in our hearts, that we kind of impose on each other, that has to go. And we have to be welcoming in to the father's heart, and welcome each other in to our hearts in the father and the son's name. Just as Moses was cured of his outsider syndrome at the burning bush, after 40 years in the wilderness of Midian as an outsider, and 40 years before that in the wilderness of Egypt as an outsider, finally he knows he belongs to God, and he really truly belongs to Israel.

At last he knows it. And just as Jonah was cured of his outsider syndrome in the belly of a fish, after three days and three nights in a submarine grave, and even after he came forth he had some things to learn about loving the Ninevites. But he's beginning now, he's learning, he's beginning to move.

The cure has begun. So you and I can be cured of this outsider syndrome, which is not in the father and it's not in our brothers and sisters, it's in us. We can be cured of this thing.

Today as we come to the table of the Lord, let's come as the prodigal, confessing our sin, and our hardness of heart, and our unbelief, our lack of welcome for other people. All these things, let's confess them. And then when the Son answers us, this is my body, given for you.

This is the blood of the new covenant, shed for you, for you. Let's believe it. And then let's welcome each other.

And then let's go out and welcome the lost ones. And let's never think of ourselves as outsiders. Ever.

Let's just wait upon him in silence now. Let the Lord, let the Spirit speak to us.