3/1/26 Autobiography: Title

1:49 so as you know last week we when we started lent we also started a new series and the series is called autobiography and it's called autobiography because of this reality the reality of course is that every life is a story and every person is an author and the only question is is who will we who will we be at the end of the story and so we talked about last week we talked about the fact that every story has a beginning. Like when we start writing our story, we either choose to write our story with God as our co-author or we get to actually choose. We can say, God, no, I want to write this on my own. I want to write this apart from me. In fact, we talked about how every sin is an attempt to be happy apart from God. But every story needs a co-author, right? Because if it's your autobiography, every life is a story. Every person is an author. The only question is, who will I be at the end of the story? So not only does, here's the thing, not only does every story have a beginning, every story has a title.

2:48 And think about how important the title is. Not only just how important a title is in general, but how important the title of an autobiography is. Because basically, when you choose the title of your autobiography, what you're saying is this. You're saying, this is the lens through which you can understand my story. That's what the title does, right? The title becomes the perspective through which people can understand like who you are. This is the perspective people can understand your story because the reality of course is that how we summarize that speech that goes in our heads because every one of us has one of these right. Every one of us has this speech in our minds that replays over and over and that speech is the way we understand the world. If you distill that speech into a couple words that speech becomes the title of our autobiography. So two years ago during Lent we followed someone's autobiography. We followed the story of a man named Father Walter Chizek. So Father Chizek, he was born in 1904 in Pennsylvania, son of a couple of Polish immigrants. And this man was like driven. He wanted to serve the Lord so badly. He not only wanted to serve the Lord, he went to seminary. And while in seminary, the Pope at the time said, we need missionaries who are willing to go to Russia to bring the gospel back to Russia because under the communist oppression, I mean, religion was just destroyed in Russia. So Father Chizek dedicated years and years of his life to becoming trained. He learned Russian. He learned how to say mass in the way of the east. He did all these things. Gets ordained, goes to Poland, tries to find a way into Russia.

4:18 Russia invades Poland. He's like, well, I guess I'm here. So he's living in Poland-occupied Russia. He's going to be on mission, and then what happens after two weeks of being there, he gets arrested by communist authorities on the charge of being a Vatican spy. He's in solitary confinement for one year, and every single day he's interrogated. Every day he's tortured every day. They try to break him until after a year of constant torture and interrogation, he breaks.

4:49 They were able to break him emotionally, they were able to break him mentally, spiritually, physically broken. And he just basically told them whatever they wanted to hear. He just signed every paper they put in front of him. After they got everything they wanted out of him, they sent him to Siberia and he worked in the gulags, labor camps for over 20 years. Years after this, he was finally, they kind of had this extradition thing where he's brought back to the States. Now, when he starts writing his autobiography, because he did, when he starts writing the story about what was it like to be abandoned in Russia?

5:21 Imagine the speech that could have gone through his head. Like, how he interpreted that time. He could have said, like, yeah, the speech is this. Speech is you give God everything and he takes it all. The speech could have been through his head, like, yeah, I tried to serve the Lord and he abandoned me. his title of his book could have been Abandoned in Russia. The title of his book could have been Don't Trust God. But the speech going through Father Chizek's head again and again every day there's a bunch of really great words in his book but one line just stuck with me years ago and I think about it probably every week especially if I'm ever facing something that's really daunting something kind of thing like I don't want to come I don't want tomorrow to come there's this line from Father Chizik, he said this. He says, there will be a tomorrow and we have to live in it. And God will be there as well.

6:10 There's a speech going through Father Chizik's mind. It's that. How do I understand my life? How do I understand what God is doing? There'll be a tomorrow and we have to live in it. And God will be there as well. That speech running through Father Chizik's mind and heart, that became his title. In fact, again, after all that pain, all that disappointment, and all that brokenness. Here's Father Chizek who said, if you want to understand me, if you want to understand how I see the world, here's the title of his autobiography. The title is three words. The words are, he leadeth me.

6:45 After all of that, Father Chizek's speech, his title of his mind, of his life story is, God did not abandon me. I was not abandoned in Russia. The title of his story is this, he leads me. And here's the reality. there's a speech inside of every one of us right now there's a way that we all see our lives there's a way that you and I we see other people are they after us are they on our side there's a way we see God is he after us is he on our side does he even care there's a way we see the world and our speech reveals how you and I see the world how we see ourselves and if we distill that speech we get our title we get the title of our life story you know speaking of stories this Lent, we're following a story in the Bible. We're following the story of the parable of the prodigal son. We looked at it a little bit last week. One of the things I think we might, actually it's pre-printed in your bulletin.

7:39 If you want to follow along, you can follow along in your bulletin. But what we didn't reprint today is we didn't reprint the first lines of Luke 15. So Luke 15 is the whole context of the parable. And if we don't know the context of the parable, we won't understand what's really going on in the parable. The context is this. The first lines of Luke chapter 15 are this. It says, So the context of the parable Jesus tells is this. Jesus is hanging out with the bad kids, and the good kids don't like it. He wants to spend his time with the kids who smoke under the bleachers after school, and the church kids are annoyed by this.

8:24 This is the context. And then it says, so to them, he addressed this parable. You ask the question, to who? Well, to both groups. Why? Because both groups, both the good kids and the bad kids, the church kids and the under the bleachers kids, every one of them has a speech that's going through their head. Every one of them has a speech running through their minds. And both groups, they have a title to their own autobiography. The younger son, we talked about the younger son last week. We'll revisit him. What was his story? His story to the younger son is, at one point he goes to his father and says, Father, give me the share of the estate, your estate that should come to me. He doesn't want to wait for his dad to die. Just give me the inheritance now. Takes the inheritance. After a couple days, he goes and spends it all. That's where we ended kind of last week. The story goes on. It says, when he had freely squandered all of his property, there was a severe famine that struck that country, and he found himself in dire need.

9:18 So he hired himself out to tend a farmer's swine. Now, here's the thing. Not only did he cut himself off from the father, God, dad, give me your stuff. Then he cut himself off from the family, right? He went away. And then he cuts himself off even from the Jewish community. Here he is. Here's a Jewish person. All he can do is live among pigs. Like there's no place lower he could get.

9:38 But it's that place that the bad kid remembers how good God is. Remember, he remembers his father's generosity. He remembers his father's kindness. So he develops his speech. And this is his speech. He says this. He says, how much food do my father's servants have? Here I'm dying of hunger. I'm going to get up. Here's what I'm going to say. I'm going to go to my father and I'll say, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers. That's his speech. You can imagine that. That's the thing running through his mind. You can imagine. Here's the younger son. He's walking all the way from this faraway place all the way to his dad's place. Every single day, every footstep, he's thinking, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I don't deserve to be called your son. I don't deserve this anymore. I've lost my sonship. You're not my dad anymore. I'm just a slave. You think this is the speech going through the younger son's head.

10:32 And that speech could be summarized in a title like Fatherless. helpless. His title could be hopeless. His title could be disappointment. the title of his autobiography could be disqualified now remember jesus is speaking to people they've rebelled and they are they want to be with jesus because they regret the fact that yeah i took my inheritance and i squandered it now they regret it now they're in pain now they're alone and every one of them has that speech going through their minds that says i don't deserve his goodness anymore i don't deserve his love anymore and it's to them that jesus says that the story goes on the younger son shows up and he starts to say his speech father sin against heaven against to you. The father runs to him. This is Jesus's words. The father runs to him. He throws himself on his son's shoulders. He grabs him around his neck. Basically, he embraces him and starts kissing his own son. He says, bring the finest robe, put it on him, a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet. And then he says, then slaughter the fattened calf. We have to celebrate. And he says, why?

11:42 He says, because why? Because this son of mine was dead and now he's alive. He was lost and he's found. Here's the thing. That younger son, he had a speech and he had a title. The speech was, I no longer deserve to be called your son. The title, my title, my story is Disqualified. And the father, with his words, rewrites the son's speech. And the rewriting of his speech is, no, my son was dead, and now he's alive. He was lost, and now he's found. Your new title is not, your title is not disqualified. Your title is claimed. Your title is, you're my son. A couple years ago, I was able to meet this incredible woman. Her name is Immaculée Elbegiza. If you know anything about Immaculée, she's from Rwanda she was a college student in 1994 she went back to her village for Easter break and that weekend over Easter break in 1994 was the Rwandan genocide where the Hutus were one of the tribes, the other tribe was the Tutsis she was a Tutsi, the Hutus raised up and they began slaughtering their neighbors these are people who lived amongst each other and at one point the Hutus, they picked up shovels and went to their neighbor's homes and killed, murdered their neighbors.

12:57 They picked up machetes and murdered, picked up rocks. They picked up the bare hands and they killed their Tutsi neighbors. So Immaculately, she fled. She ran to the house of a Lutheran pastor. Her dad said, run, go to this guy's house. Went to the house of a Lutheran pastor. He took her in and he put her in a three foot by four foot bathroom with seven other grown women. For the next 91 days, Immaculately hid in this three foot by four foot bathroom with eight total women. They couldn't lie down. They had to stand. They took turns sitting.

13:29 Constant fear that someone would find them. Actually, the Lutheran pastor, he didn't even let his family know that he was hiding these eight women in this hidden bathroom. They lived in constant danger, constant threat of being discovered. So all she could do, all she could do was pray the rosary. But here's the problem. She kept getting to the Our Father and she'd start praying. She couldn't finish the Our Father because in the Our Father there's that word, that line that says, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And she's like, I can't pray that because my neighbors killed my family. And I don't want them to be forgiven. So she just skipped over that part of the prayer. For weeks, she prayed all day, all night, the rosary, just skipped over that part of the prayer because I can't do it. I can't, I don't want them to be forgiven until finally she just encountered God's love and God had to rewrite her story. God had to rewrite the speech in her head. God had to do something so finally she could start praying, forgive them as, forgive me as you, I forgive them. She finally escaped.

14:28 She discovered that virtually every member of her family had been murdered by someone she knew. Someone who would have been a friend to her, to their family. And she wrote her autobiography. You can imagine, here's the question, what would, what do you think that autobiography would be? what would be the title of the autobiography like vengeance, revenge kill them all, left alone the title of Immaculate's autobiography is simply, it's three words as well it's simply left to tell that she saw herself as not someone who's merely left to tell the story of brokenness the story of violence and the story of destruction but I'm here to tell you about the power of forgiveness I've been left, the only one in my family left alive, why?

15:23 I've been left alive to tell you the story of God's mercy I'm left to tell you the story that new life is possible because here's the thing every one of us has a speech living in our hearts every one of us has a title and we have to do we have to tell the father that speech so he can rewrite the speech you know the older son has a speech too sometimes we think of the older son remember there's two people two groups of people there's the good kids and the bad kids there's the church kids they have a story that's the older son you know the story of the older son is this is that the older son comes in from the field this is Jesus he tells the story The older son comes in from the field and he hears the sound of music and dancing.

16:04 And he asks the servant, he says, what's going on? And the servant says, your brother is back. And your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. The next line is this. When he finds out that his little brother is not dead but alive, when he finds out his little brother has come home, when he finds out that his father is celebrating his brother, the next line is, he became angry. and he refused to go inside. here's one of the things we have to acknowledge I think a lot of us we hear the parable of the prodigal son we're like oh man I'm the younger son like I'm the younger son I ran away and I came back here I are that might be true that's probably true but let's be honest you guys you're at church on a Sunday night you're the older son too let's be honest you might be the bad kids smoking under the bleachers you're also a bunch of church kids no offense you guys it is 6 p.m. on a Sunday night you're here I look at myself, I'm like yeah some days I'm the church kid, some kids I'm the bad kid sometimes the older son, some days I'm the younger son here's the interesting thing the older son and the younger son they have the same heart they have the exact same heart remember the younger son he wants to be happy he wants to be happy apart from the father the older son he also wants to be happy he wants to be happy apart from the father where he sees his younger son this is the thing for older sons if you're an older son if you're one of the older children here you see others rebelling and then not getting disqualified we see others rebelling and not being persecuted we see others rebelling and then they don't get grounded what the heck's going on mom and dad. We see them being loved. We see them being restored. We see them being celebrated.

18:00 And we look at ourselves like, wait, I never rebelled. the older son wanted the exact same thing as the younger son. He wanted a life apart from the father as well. Here's the truth. It's possible to leave home and be lost. That's true. That's the younger son. It is also possible to stay home and remain lost.

18:24 It's possible to never leave the father's house and still be lost. Because the older son, he's lost. Jesus gives us hints. Younger son comes in from working at the field. Here's the son of a party. Now, if you heard a party in your own home, this is your home where you live with your father. And there's a party inside, what would you do? You'd walk inside. What's going on, guys? What's he do? He doesn't walk in. He doesn't even ask his dad what's going on. He asks a fellow, he asks a servant what's going on. What that reveals, it reveals that he identifies more with a servant than with a son.

18:57 He hears about his brother being celebrated. grows angry, refuses to come in. His father comes out and pleads with him. And this is the older son's speech. Again, every one of us has a speech in our hearts. Every one of us has, oh, this is the way I look at the world. And the older son's speech is this. He looks at his father and says, look, all these years I've slaved for you. And not once today to disobey your orders. But when your son comes home, who squandered your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughtered the fattened calf. but for me you never even gave me a kid to feast on with my friends. That last line is so important. You never even gave me a goat to feast on with my friends. This is again the older son he has a heart just like the younger son. He doesn't say this. He doesn't say you never threw a feast for me. He never says you never wanted to party or celebrate with me. Why?

19:49 Because the older son does not want to celebrate with the father. he wanted to take the father's stuff a goat, a kid and celebrate away from his father it's possible to stay home and still be lost. Here's the reality. the older son believed the lie that every that so many church kids believe. The older son believed the lie that so many good kids believe. And the lie is this, my worth lies in my not being a problem. there might be some of us here tonight who maybe the speech going through your head is, I don't deserve to be called your son. I'm disqualified.

20:42 But also could be that some of us here tonight, we believe that lie. The speech going through my mind is my worth, my value lies in the fact that I'm not a problem. I've mentioned many times that I'm the fourth of six kids. And I will say, I'm so grateful that I have two older sisters and an older brother. I'm so grateful. I'm grateful for many reasons. One of the reasons is because they got to pave the way. I don't know if you're the oldest. If you're the oldest in your family, praise the Lord for you.

21:07 Because you had to pave the way. Here's how easy life was in the Schmitz household as the fourth of six. I just saw what my sisters and brother did and did the opposite. I saw them making all these mistakes, getting in all this trouble. I'm like, okay, noted. Just don't do that. And I'll say this, that's a wise way to live. Like, yeah, you can make a mess of your life. That's no problem. I just know I'm not going to do that. It's wise. But here's the problem. They could also lead to a life of resentment. because here's my brother and my sisters. They're messing up all over the place. My parents still love them. They're messing up all over the place, and they're still celebrated. They're messing up all over the place, and wait a second, they're still welcomed home, just like I'm welcomed home, and what can happen is this. What can happen is the poison, the poison of the good kid is resentment.

22:04 Here's what resentment does. Resentment will slowly rewrite the story of what happened so that your wound becomes the lens through which you interpret everything. so I rehearsed that speech over and over again the older son I'm the victim hero of my life of this family I'm the victim hero because why? because I've slaved I've never disobeyed your orders basically father that's all you care about all you care about is the fact that I do what you ask and resentment becomes a poison you guys here's the thing resentment is so deadly resentment is what happens when we let one chapter become the title of the whole book.

22:48 That yeah, something painful happened, and maybe it deserves a paragraph, maybe it even deserves a full chapter, but resentment turns that one thing into, this is my story. And I don't just remember what happened, I let it narrate who I am. No, a healthy autobiography, a healthy autobiography would integrate the worst chapter, but resentment canonizes it. And resentment turns a chapter into a monument and names your book after your wound. because resentment is powerful resentment is so powerful but resentment doesn't have power to move us resentment has the power to paralyze us a couple years ago prince harry wrote a book prince harry right the son of prince charles and princess diana he wrote he wrote an autobiography and the and the the title of the autobiography is is literally named after his wound it's it's the speech i'm guessing goes through prince harry's mind every single day that's become his identity. I think the title of Prince Harry's book is the lens to which he understood himself.

23:51 The title of the book, maybe you know it, the title of Prince Harry's book is one word. It's just spare. because that's how he saw himself. He saw himself as, I'm the second son of the future king. So I'm the spare kid. That he saw himself as the second son to Prince Charles, Princess Diana. Basically, the speech in Prince Harry's mind is this. I'm the backup plan to the one who actually matters. you can see this in his life this is the lens through which he says if you want to understand me that's who I am I'm the backup plan to the one who matters I'm the spare and that could be us why? because every one of us has a speech running through our minds every one of us has a title so here's the question what's the remedy?

24:43 how do we get that fixed? well there's two steps one step is this tell your speech the first step is not get rid of your speech the first step is what's the speech going through your mind like to actually go into prayer and tell God the truth what is that speech that runs through your mind that you say this is how I see myself this is how I see others this is how I see life this is how I see God to actually go into prayer and talk to the father why because that's what both sons do right first son younger son father I've sinned against heaven against you I no longer deserve to be called your son. He tells his speech. What's the father say? My son is dead and he's alive again. The father rewrites the speech. Your title was disqualified. No, no, no. Your new title is claimed. The older son has his speech. Look, all these years I've slaved for you. Never once to disobey one of your orders.

25:41 My title is used up. my title is my worth lies and that I'm not a problem and what happens after he tells his speech the father responds and says basically I love this the father says he says my son my son you are with me always everything I have is yours but now we must celebrate and rejoice because your brother was dead and now he's alive he was dead in life has brought to life again Here's the father. The father reads into his speech, his son's speech. I've slaved for you. I've never disobeyed you. I've served you. And the father's like, oh my gosh, I didn't, I wasn't trying to burden you.

26:25 I was trusting you. That's what the father's saying. I wasn't trying to burden you. I didn't think that I was putting a heavy load on you. I thought that in working with you on this farm, I was entrusting you with everything that I have. so the father rewrites the speech i love the fact that he says but now we must celebrate and rejoice why when he says we you guys this is so important when he says we this is not like hey we on the farm he's like no you and me why because the father's saying hey we're the only two family members he has here everyone else is a servant everyone else is a hired worker but you and i are the two family members. You and I are united. You and I are a we. And if we're not willing to celebrate his coming home, no one will. Remember the context.

27:18 Jesus is talking to these good kids who are upset that bad kids are finding him. Jesus is telling them, no, listen, we, you've been with me always. You haven't run away. You haven't rebelled. so you're the one I'm trusting that when they come home it's us who gets to celebrate in order to let the father rewrite our speech and rewrite our story we have to tell him our speech and tell him our title and then listen and this is the last thing so we have in the gospel today Jesus goes up the mountain and what happens there's Moses and Elijah and then the father speaks what's he say he says this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased why does he do that because he knows what's coming next Jesus is going to come down the mountain he's going to go to Jerusalem he's going to get betrayed denied arrested convicted crucified and killed and the father is saying through all of that this is the speech that needs to live in your mind and live in your heart. You are my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased.

28:32 Through all of that, through all the difficulty of life, at the end of your life, this is the title that you need to know is declared over you. That title is not abandoned, son. its beloved son. my brothers and sisters if resentment has marked your life we have to let it go if resentment has defined your speech and defined your title we have to tell the father our speech honestly and boldly and then let him speak.

29:19 And in that silence, listen to the Father's voice. And that voice is clear, and that voice is strong, and that voice is true. And that voice is strong enough to rewrite your speech. And that voice is strong enough to rewrite your title. And that voice is true enough to give you a new title for your autobiography.