FBC family,

This week we celebrate our “Come Home and Bring a Friend” service at FBC.

This phenomenon of "going home" is one we all deeply long for. Throughout our lives, we encounter many who have been wildly successful, and those who have failed greatly, but they often share one common desire as they approach the end of their earthly journey: to return home.

We will look at a famous passage that is often spoken about at weddings. The from The Book of Ruth, which tells a powerful story of two women returning home. Naomi, an Israelite woman, leaves her home in Bethlehem with her husband and two sons during a famine.

After her husband and sons die in Moab, she decides to return to Bethlehem, bitter and empty. Her daughter-in-law, Ruth, pledges her loyalty to Naomi, famously saying, "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God."

And then from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah which give us the details a large homecoming, the return of the exiles to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city walls. This return was not just a physical journey but a spiritual one, representing a renewed covenant with God and the restoration of their identity as His chosen people.

And lastly the most famous story of going home is the Parable of the Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15:11-32. You may remember the story -A younger son demands his inheritance early, leaves home for a "distant country," and squanders his wealth on reckless living.

When a famine strikes and he finds himself desperate, in Luke 15:17 we read that he "comes to his senses" and decides to return to his father, ready to beg for a place as a hired servant.

Maybe you are like one of these three, you have been away from God and the church for awhile, possibly distracted by life in general, but realize that you have been missing the most important part of your life, that of a relationship with your Savior. If that’s you case- Jesus welcomes you Home.