The second one here is, it needs to be heartfelt repentance. He said: I know I'll go to my father; and I'll say: I've sinned against heaven and before you. There has to be an admission of wrong, that actually my attitude has been wrong, and that I've hurt people with it. That's the hard one, and you notice he was willing to go and say: I've sinned before God. What I did is actually sin, that's the root of it; self-centred thinking, give-me, is sin. Oh? See we think of sin as: well I got drunk, or did this, or did that. We don't think, that actually that whole self-centred orientation of life, is actually out of order, and therefore sin.
He said: I'll say I've sinned against heaven, and I've sinned against you, so here's the thing. Number one, I need to recognise that my 'give me' approach to life and relationships, whether it's work, marriage, children, family, ministry, whatever it is, actually is a path to ruin. I need to come and start to reflect and say: God, show me not only where I'm at, but show me how I've hurt people through this. Then he went to the father, and he was willing to apologise and say: I am sorry, what I did was wrong. I have really damaged our relationship. I'm not even worthy to be called your son. Notice there's no claims, no entitlement, it's all gone. He said: make me to be a servant in the house. What a change!
So number one, we need to recognise just the condition we're in, and that mentality and way of thinking. Two, deeply repent, because it has affected those around us. It has affected people in your sphere of influence. Where appropriate, put it right by apologising. Then thirdly, we need to actually take up the cross. There's actually a decision, that I'm going to do things differently, I'll do things differently. You notice what the young man did. He come back, and he said: I'm going to be a servant; so make a commitment you'll serve in situations. The moment you set yourself to serve, a decision to serve others, and make your value in life: I will honour people, I will serve people; because this is who I am. When you make that decision, everything in your life starts to shift; because every situation you go into, it's not: what can I get out, give-me, and getting angry and upset and offended. It's now, what can I put in that will make it better? What can I contribute that would shift this? How can I be a blessing, how can I build? Now I may not be able to fix everything, but I can do my part to make this office, this house, this neighbourhood, my marriage, my family a better place; and in doing so, you're following Jesus, because He said: if you want to be great in the kingdom, serve. Serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve.
You never graduate from it. It doesn't matter what position you hold, title or rank, they don't mean anything. It's all about serving, and if you haven't got the serving thing fixed up, then the title's a mess. It just means you use everyone, and you'll hurt them; but if you've actually got serving right, you can have a position or no position; it doesn't mean a thing, because when you have no position, you're serving; when you have a position, you're serving. It's just how you serve different, and this is what's going on right through the world right now, the corporate structures are starting to collapse, because they are based on: give me, and entitlement; and not on serve me. Now they're starting to collapse, and the world's saying: we need to look to another way of doing life. Churches which picked up that model for years, and ran with it, and where are they going to look now? Need to come back to what Jesus said, and Jesus was able to - now get this, you'll love this. We'll finish with this. It's His last meal. Now if you're about to have your last meal, you want it to be a special meal, a happy meal; let it be a happy meal with everything added on. What you would probably want is everyone to be nice to you, because you're about to do this very big thing you know. I'm going to go to the cross, it's going to hurt! [Laughter] What He did instead was, He washed the feet. See, that is the spirit of the kingdom. That is the spirit. Now if you follow Christ, that's the spirit you walk in, a spirit of serving.