Luke 15:1-32.

Mark Smith preaching from Luke 15:1-32. Connect with us here:Website: citychurchdublin.ieFacebook: facebook.com/CityChurchDublin

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Our reading today will be from Luke chapter 15. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. Or suppose a woman has tents over coins and loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin. In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Jesus continued, there was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country, and then squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the whole country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs that the pigs were feeding, were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his census, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare? And here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. The son said, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. Your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed a fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you, and you never I never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never even gave me a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you killed a fat and calf for him. My son, the father said, You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. May God bless the reading of his word.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Please take a seat, everybody. Why we read the whole passage. If you're looking it up and following along, we read from the English Standard Version, the ESV. So you can just look up Luke 15 ESV. And also if the lights aren't washing it out too much, maybe actually Will, as you go past, you can just tilt the light away from the QR code. It might just be my uh the angle that I'm looking at. But if you can scan this QR code, if English is not your first language, thank you, Eduardo. Perfect. If English is not your first language and you'd like to follow along with the translation in your native tongue, you can scan that QR code. If it's too far over to one side, you can sneak along the back and scan it and follow, follow along with us. And so hopefully you have uh Luke chapter 15 uh open in front of you. And when I um when I grew up, I grew up in Northern Ireland. I grew up in a uh a very uh Christian town in Northern Ireland called Carrick Fergus, and I went to a Christian school where there was an assembly every morning where all the kids gathered together, and they the headmaster or one of the teachers would often do a Bible story, and I vividly remember him teaching this story to us, and I remember being really struck by it, but it wasn't because I was so caught up by the reckless love of the father, I wasn't appalled at the sin of the son. It was because I felt like the older brother got shafted. Didn't he? Do you read that and think, hold on a second, Jesus? The younger brother gets all of this money and he blows it. The older brother stays at home, does all the things that he's told to do, is a good boy, keeps all of the rules. And when the younger brother comes back, who's gone off doing whatever he wanted to do, and finally says, Oh, I'm really sorry, Dad. Dad throws a party. Sorry? Does anybody is anybody else go? Yeah, I'm with the older brother on this one, actually. Yeah, I've got a couple of hands. So that's me, right? That's my confession this morning. I am the older brother. I look at the younger brother and go, are you kidding me? Maybe you read the story like me, and you have your older brother tends to think, well, how is this good news? Why is this in the book? People call this parable the parable of the prodigal son. Prodigal means reckless, uh, foolishly lavish with particularly with money. But actually, as you read the parable, one of the things that begins to strike you is that it's a story about two sons, not one. It's comparing how each son relates to the father and how the father relates to them. The reason why this parable is here is because Jesus is showing us that everything that we instinctively think, and I instinctively think, about my relationship with God when I was a kid in school, is wrong. The morally corrupt people can be far from God, and morally upright people can be far from him too. It is correcting the notion that finding God can either be done with self-exploration and going off and on an adventure of self-discovery, or find through moral conformity. Jesus says no to both of these things. Everything that we thought about how to relate to God as our Father and how our Father in heaven relates to us is wrong and needs to be recalibrated by this parable. So, in light of that, let's let's look at the story, let's draw out some details of it to begin with, by way of introduction, and then I'm going to make three observations. So we're still we're just kind of doing a little kind of Bible study together. So, again, helpful for you to have it open in front of you. The story really is in two parts one focusing on the younger brother, one focusing on the older brother. And it and it changes there in verse 25, where it says, Now the older son. But it begins with the younger. The younger comes to the father and says, Give me half my share now. Cash me out, dad. I'd like my inheritance now, please. And that's the first shocker in this, because you need to understand that that is a huge insult. Essentially, what the son has just come to the father and said is, I wish you were dead. Could I please have all of your stuff? In the ancient world, if a son had made that request, the expectation, the community expectation would have been that the father would have turned around and cast him out of the home, cut him off completely, sent him away. Such was the shame of being asked to do such a thing. The son is saying, I want all of your stuff, and I don't want you. People listening would have been shocked that Jesus would have started a story like this. But what does the father do? Verse 12, second half, he divides up the land. He grants the son's request. And that's shocking. Why? Because again, in the ancient world, your land was everything. Especially to a younger son, a second son, to give him half the land. That was your status. That was your reputation. That was all of your wealth, that was your standing in community, that was your respectability. It was all tied to your land. And what is the father doing? The father is enduring that shame, that scorn, that those sideways glances of why would he do that? Like, is he so weak as a father that he can't discipline his son? Like it's a shameful thing that the father is doing. But he does it anyway. So the son, the younger son, takes the money and he squanders it, we're told. He uh, you know, sex and drugs and rock and roll. He lives the lives the high life. And soon he's he's left with nothing. Because not only does he squander the money, but the guy's a fool because a famine comes. And so there's not even any there's not even any forward planning. It's not even like he says, cash me my dad. I think I can make a better investment. I'm gonna open up my my trading 212 account and I'm gonna I'm gonna uh track with the SP 500 here uh and get my 8% return. Um, no, he just blows it all. He heads off to Vegas and he puts it all on black. And he comes home and he goes, Well, that didn't work out, it came out red. So not only is he reckless, he's a moron. And so he finds himself broke, starving, and alone, and he hires himself out. He hires himself out to a pig farmer, and again, that's another shock because to the Jewish years, like, oh, that's gross. He's made himself ceremonially ritually unclean. He's gone off to a Gentile land, and he said, actually, I'll feed the pigs, and he's absolutely starving. And at the very pit of the story for the younger brother, he starts to formulate a plan, verses 18 and 19. He says, I'll rise and I'll go to my father and I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. So he he comes up with this plan. He says, I'm gonna work off the debt, Dad. Make me one of your servants. I want to try and earn my way back into your household. I want to try and make amends. So he heads back. And while he's still a long way off, the father spots him. And what does the father do? He runs. He runs to meet him in a culture where fathers don't run. Women run, children run, men don't run. It's a debasing, shameful, embarrassing thing. But this father is so overcome by emotion. He's so overcome by his love for his son that he is reckless. He doesn't he doesn't give a rip about what the community thinks. He's like, I have to get to my boy. And so he runs. Complete emotional abandon. And the son, he tries to give his plan. He's like, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worth that. And he says, Shh. The father doesn't hear any of it, right? The father doesn't go, well, yeah, absolutely right. About time you came back, off to the field you go, minimum wage for you. No, he calls to his servants and he says, Bring the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his finger, and kill the fattened calf. Let's throw a party. These symbols, the robe, the ring, and the calf, are symbols of status. They are symbols of respect. They are symbols of honor, in other words, they are symbols of sonship. So I'm not hearing your plan to work your way back into my graces. You are my boy. And you have come home. The father does not wait for the son to clean himself up morally or to begin to pay back some of the money that he's taken. No, he immediately grants the markers of sonship. And then this party is thrown, and the camera, if you think of it as a uh as a movie, you imagine the house here, there's music, there's dancing, there's laughter, you can smell the roast beef wafting out of the windows, and the camera comes out of the doorway, pans back, and moves over to the field, where the older brother has been wiping the sweat off his bra, and he looks up and he can hear something. He can smell a pleasant smell on the air. And he calls one of the servants over and he goes, What's dad doing over there? And the servant goes, Your brother! Your brother's come home! And your father, your father's thrown a party for him. How does his older brother respond? Screw that. I'm not going in there. How dare he throw a party for that loser, for that moron, who's brought so much shame on our family. He's throwing a party for him. How weak willed is my dad that he would let him come back. That's the older brother's attitude. We know that because what does the father do? The father comes out, he leaves the party, and he comes and has a conversation with his older brother or with his eldest son. And the older brother turns to his dad and says, Look, it's literally like, look, you all these years I have slaved for you. I have kept all of the rules, I have done all of the work, and you have given me nothing. No, not even a small goat that I might celebrate with my friends. And this son of yours, this boy, who squandered his life, squandered all of this money on prostitutes? How'd the older brother know? You ever thought that? How'd the older brother know? He's only smelling the fat and calf, no? He hasn't spoken to his brother. How does he know? We'll get into reflections in a second, but you know what rule keepers want to do? They actually want to be like younger brothers. Part of the reason we get annoyed at younger brothers is because we wish we had the courage to live like them. But let's come back to the story. Seriously, though. We stand in judgment over younger brothers in part because we're like. Why did he get to go and have all the fun? How does the father respond to him at the end? He said to him, son. It's the word for a little child. It's literally my child. My boy. All that I have is yours. But my your brother was dead and now he's alive. This is arguably one of the most famous stories that Jesus ever told, but it's also one of the most misunderstood. Because Jesus here isn't just telling us a touching story about forgiveness. He's overturning everything that people thought that they knew about God, about sin, and about the nature of salvation. And instead, in this story, Jesus shows us three things that we're going to reflect upon. First of them is the Father that we never expected. The father that we never expected. Jesus is the first to really emphasize the fatherhood of God. That's how he teaches his disciples to pray, right? Our Father who art in heaven, holy is your name. And in this story, what he begins to flesh out is the character of God. What kind of father is he? Because again, we can have a tendency to think about our fathers and the experiences that we've had positively and negatively, and we project them upwards. What kind of father is this? Continues to love them at great cost to himself. In love, he absorbs the scorn. He absorbs the hurt and rejection of his sons. He is gracious towards them. He is generous towards them. He is compassionate. And even though he is the wounded and offended party, he continues to love. That's the kind of father that Jesus says we have in God. That he Continues to love us even when we are hurting him and one another. Not only that, but Jesus says that he is a father who comes in search of his sons. The younger brother is not yet home. He's still a long way off. And what does the father do? The father runs to meet him. The older brother is out in the field, won't come into the party. What does the father do? He leaves the party and he goes and he meets with his eldest son. We have a father who longs to be reunited with his children. It's one of the things that's a theme in each of the parables that Tina read for us. The lost sheep and the lost coin. That the shepherd, he really wants to find the sheep. He leaves the 99. He goes to find the one. He has a desire to find that which is lost. Same with the woman with her lost coin. She can't wait to find, she searches diligently. She pulls all of the sofa cushions off. She looks under the mattress. She checks her coat pocket to find that little, that little missing fiver. Isn't it great when you put your hand in your pocket, you find a fiver that you've forgotten about? The woman is, she wants to find it. Friends, this is what Jesus is saying about God. He's looking for you. He wants to find you. He is searching diligently. That is the kind of God that Jesus presents to us. In love, he absorbs the scorn and rejection of his sons. This is what he is like. I remember somebody said once that the only way a young child is able to slap his father in the face is because the father holds him in his arms. Often our rejecting of God, our slapping him in the face. It's only because he is longing for us to come home. He has us in his arms. We're kicking and pushing away. This is the Father that we never expected. Secondly, Jesus wants us to see the lostness that we never saw. Again, speaking as an older brother, we read verses like verse 13 and think, well, that's the that's the sin bit. Let me remind you. Not many days later, the son gathered all that he had and took a journey to a far country, and he squandered his property and reckless living. He went off, and the implication is that there was drunkenness, sexual immorality. So we think that's the sinful stuff there. That's the really bad stuff that will keep you from the father. That's the lost person. But there's a second part of the parable. And when you read the second part and the response of the older brother, one of the things you begin to realize is that both sons wanted the father's stuff rather than the father himself. The older brother says, You haven't even given me a small goat. He's been looking for the stuff, just didn't have the courage to ask. Both sons are interested in using the father instead of loving him. Both sons reject the father. How? Two different ways do they reject the father. The younger son rejects the father by being really bad. By doing all of the sins that we think are sins, drunkenness and orgies and things like that. But the older brother rejects the father by being very, very good. And by keeping all of the rules, and by being a good little boy. And it leaves him bitter. And it leaves him resentful. This is what turns the parable in its head. The younger brother is lost in his badness, yes, but the older brother is lost in his goodness. Neither son wanted the father for himself. They were both using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving him, rather than enjoying him, rather than serving him for his own sake. This means for each of us here that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking the rules or by keeping them all diligently. The careful obedience to God's law may actually serve as a strategy for rejecting God. How is this possible? Well, you look at who's listening to the parable. This is why we started at verse 1. Because in verse 1 and 2, Jesus tells us, or Luke tells us rather, who's listening to the story. Let me remind you. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. Who's listening? There's two types of people. There's the tax collectors and sinners. They're like, can't wait to hear more of that grace, forgiveness, taking of shame, taking of guilt, cleansing, new life. Sounds great, Jesus. I need that. I'm pretty messed up. What have you got on the other side? Scribes and Pharisees, who are they? They're the rule keepers. They're the people who serve God day and night. They're the people who look at the 613 laws of the Old Testament and think, tick, who go through their cumin seeds and make sure that they give 10% of them to the temple. They keep all of the rules. And they look at the guys over here and they go, I cannot believe that Jesus is talking to them. You can stay far away from God by being trapped in your reckless living. By thinking that God won't love you because you've sinned too much. You've done too much of the younger brother lifestyle. Or you can keep God at arm's length by thinking, well, actually, I don't need God to save me from my sin because I'm doing a fine enough job of my own. I'm keeping the rules. I've been a good boy, I've been a good girl. Why wouldn't God love me? How dare he say that I need to repent and change my mind and that there's things in my life that I need to take care of. He's hardly ever given me anything. You can reject God by being bad, and you can reject God by being good. That's the point of the parable. Are you a younger brother? Don't let your sin keep you from the Father. Are you an older brother? Don't let your perceived righteousness keep you from the grace of Jesus. People tend one way or the other. I think that your life and the world will be better. If you are true to yourself, if you look inward, if you throw off all of the rules and shackles of conformity and live free. Then there are those who think, well, the world would be a better place if everybody just stuck to the rules and did what they were told and conformed morally. Jesus says both are wrong, both are lost. The younger brother breaks the rules and wanted freedom. The older brother keeps all the rules and wanted control. You could avoid Jesus by running from him your whole life and doing your own thing. But you can also avoid Jesus by trying to avoid sin. Making sure that you balance the scale yourself, whatever it is you do. Because if you don't see your need for Jesus, you'll never come close to him. We don't just need to be saved from our badness, we need to be saved from our goodness. Because our goodness, our moral conformity, what does it do? What does it do to the older brother? Well, it makes him better. Makes him compare. He looks over at his bad younger brother and goes, Well, I'm not as bad as him. So why wouldn't God love me? We do that all the time. Older brothers love to do that. We love to look at somebody who is really bad and go, Well, at least I'm not as bad as they are. Imagine you're two people drowning in the ocean. You want to save yourself, so what do you do? You grab the other person and you push them down in order to push yourself up. That's what older brothers do. Older brothers look at sinful people and we push them down in order to elevate ourselves. Go, look at me. Aren't I good? Older brothers become resentful. They are often anxious. They are fairly always joyless. Because he can't look at the he can't look at the fact that his little brother has come to his senses and returned back and feel any delight. Isn't that so sad? It's so sad that I, as an older brother, know that joylessness. That's why older brothers need to come to Jesus. The Father's like, why wouldn't you come into the party? The only person that's miserable here is you. That what Jesus offers in this parable is a salvation that we could never imagine. This parable shows us that salvation, coming into the party, knowing the joy of being welcomed into the Father's home, isn't achieved through upright moral character or by religious observance. No. Salvation, being drawn into relationship with God, is based first and foremost on the initiative of the Father. Again, in each of these parables, it's about people longing for something lost. The shepherd cares for the sheep and he looks for it. It matters to the woman that the coin is lost and she searches for it. The father runs to the younger brother, he leaves the celebration and comes out to the older. God cares for lost things. And so if you're sitting here this morning going, I'm a lost thing, I'm that lost sheep, I'm that coin buried on the back of the sofa, I'm that younger brother who just feels like I can't come near to God because of my sin. Or that older brother who's like, yeah, I'm so trapped in this cycle of bitterness and resentment where I just look at people and it just makes me angry that they would have more than I've got. The father loves to seek lost things. He's looking for you. He's wondering where you are. He's got you in his sights. Moreover, how many of us think about our past and and we act like the younger brother? You think, well, how am I worthy to be called a son? We we we have the plan in our head of I'm gonna work my way back, I'm gonna I'm gonna treat myself like a hired servant. We think that our past is too shameful, our sins are so bad that in essence we refuse to wear those markers of sonship. So the father comes along and he says, Okay, I'm gonna clothe you, I'm gonna put the best robe on your back, and you're there going, no, no, no, I'm not worthy of it. And the father's like, no, put it on your back. You are my son. He's like, no, let me work my way back. And you think it's humble. The humble thing to do would be to work your way back. The humble thing to do would be to, no, I'm not, let me earn the robe. Don't put it on me yet. Let me be like a hired servant. It's not humble. Humility is receiving the robe that you could never achieve by your own goodness. Humility is letting the Father clothe you and saying, thank you, Dad. I'm so sorry. Thank you that you make me your child. Again, I don't deserve it. I know I don't deserve it. You're so gracious. I'd love I'd love to come into the party. I'm so hungry. Roast beef sounds great. Dear Christian brother or sister, let the Father put the markers of sonship on you. Let him clothe you in the best robe because you know whose robe that is. It's the robe of the perfect righteousness of Jesus. Let him put it on your back. Let him put the ring on your finger, that marker that you are his forever. Lay your deadly doing down all down at Jesus' feet. Find yourself in him alone, gloriously complete. Come in to the party. Humility is accepting the grace that God offers and living as a son, not as a slave. This parable also means that for us, when we are repenting of our sin, repent means to change our mind, to change the direction that we are living. That repentance is not just of our sins, but also for the wrong reasons behind our obedience. How often do you find yourself obeying God because you actually want something from Him? You're doing the things that the good Christian boy or girl will do, but there's something else that's captivated your heart. There's something else you want more. Maybe it's success, maybe it's career advancement, maybe it's love. And you'll do the obedience thing and you'll go along to church and you'll serve there, and you'll go to community group and you'll give of your money, you'll be as generous as your transactional heart will allow you to be. But there's something else you want. Something else you want more. And if the father keeps on withholding it from you, you're gonna end up like the older brother, you're gonna say, All these years I've served you, and what have you given me? I wanted love. And you've kept me single. All these years. I've done all of the things. And you really didn't give me my heart's desire. Is God your heavenly father there, and or is God your heavenly vending machine? Put the obedience coin in the slot. Press the button. That's what I want. We need to repent not just of our sins, but for the wrong reasons of our righteousness. Finally. What does this older brother do? Stays in the field, does his job, keeps the rules. He doesn't care about his younger brother. The Pharisees were the ones who were responsible for showing the tax collectors and sinners the mercy and grace of God. They were supposed to be the older brothers who would go out to the far country and find the tax collectors and sinners and welcome them back into the family of God. Show them the grace that he has to cover sins. And what were they doing? They sat there at the feet of Jesus and they grumbled. Thought, why is he talking to them? Jesus is the elder brother that we need. Jesus is the elder brother who not only truly loved the Father for Himself, but loves us. Loves us enough to leave his home and come to the far country of this world. To set aside all of the privileges and comforts of home and to come and seek diligently for each of us in order to bring us home. And just as the Father in the story absorbs the sin and the shame caused by his sons, and yet continued to love them, so Jesus continues to love us by absorbing our sin, by taking our shame, absorbing that heart into himself. In his death, he is stripped naked that we might be clothed in his perfect righteousness. All of the dignities and hallmarks of a son were taken from him. And they're given to us. They're given to us as a gift of his grace. Trusting this, putting your faith in this changes everything. It changes how you relate to God, it changes how you view yourself, how you view the things in your past that you are ashamed of. A daughter of the Most High. And for us, older brothers. Who might go into the party eventually? What we find is that we're able to share in the joy of grace. We're able to see our rule keeping as this sinful self-absorption that it is, and no forgiveness. And that gives us joy. It roots out resentment. It battles bitterness. So, younger brothers, come home. The feast is ready. There is much joy to be had. The celebration will be great. You are welcome at the Father's table, whatever you have done. Older brothers, do not despise the younger. Do not look at your own righteousness and think, well, I deserve more. Lay aside your rule keeping and come and enjoy the party. Let's pray. Father, thank you that you are not blind to our need of you, that you are not disinterested in who we are or what we have done, but that you seek us diligently, that you act to save us. Thank you for Jesus, the elder brother, who comes to our world in search of us, who takes our shame, who gives us those markers of sonship, who clothes us in his righteousness. May each of us know the goodness, the rest, the joy of life in the Father's house, being treated as a child, forever loved, forever welcomed home, forever accepted. Spirit, come. Take these truths and plant them deep in our hearts, we ask. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

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