Pastor Taylor Shippy - Luke 15:11-31; Galatians 3:36-4:7

Jesus once said to His disciples, “I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me” (Jn 15:15). Late 19th Century preacher George MacDonald once said, “Those to whom God is not all in all, are slaves. They may not commit great sins; they may be trying to do right; but so long as they serve God, as they call it, from duty, and do not know him as their father, the joy of their being, they are slaves -- good slaves, but slaves.” I hear our Heavenly Father calling us to a new way of life -- a restored status as a child of God -- and it requires us to let go of who we’ve become and allow God to restore us to who we used to be. An honored child.