Receiving Grace

By way of review, each story, one big story, talks about things to make one really big point. Each story has five things in common.

Number one, something valuable is lost. Right? A coin, a sheep, a son. Actually, two sons. Number two, an intensive search occurs. They are searching and really looking.

Number three, that which was lost is found. Number four, a great celebration follows. The shepherd calls his friends, the woman calls her friends, the father, literally, you’re going to learn, it’s a Near Eastern village, the entire village would come to this party.

And then, fifth, the spiritual application is explained. So each time Jesus talks about the value of one single sinner, someone far from God, whether they are religious or not, coming to God and the joy, the celebration, the party that happens in heaven.

What we learned from the parable or the following things, by way of review, is that God deeply values irreligious, immoral, lost people. And part of the message is going to be, He wants us to deeply value immoral, lost, irreligious people as were many of us.

God actively is pursuing a relationship with lost people. This whole story is Jesus is getting criticized because He is relating and hanging out and eating and loving and caring about them.

Third, heaven rejoices when one lost person repents. The value of that lost person exponentially increases. The story keeps building to a climax. A sheep would be worth something, the coin more, and the son is far more.

The story, in story number three, represents the father - is God. Jesus is going to completely redefine Him, especially for the Pharisees. This is what God is like instead of who you think He is like.

The two sons depicted, the younger son is the immoral sinner. The older son is the righteous or religious sinner. But both are far from God. Both are disconnected from the Father.

And then, finally, both sons are equally lost, but not equally aware of their lostness.

Now, here is what I want to do. I want to walk through our time with the younger son and I am going to ask you to put on some new glasses and see this story, if you had grown up in a peasant village in the Middle East, at the time of Jesus.

What you learn is that, actually, a lot hasn’t changed in a lot of these villages. Because what you’re going to see is when you understand, if you understood, the story He is going to tell would have never happened. It would have never happened.

In fact, it was scandalous. They were shocked. I will tell you, as we begin to open up the story, the disciples are over here with their mouth going…and the Pharisees are over here going, “No way!”

Because what Jesus is going to do for them, and I pray for us, He is going to completely redefine what God is like. Left to yourself, left to myself, people left to themselves, we create in our mind and our heart a god who can never, ever be pleased. A god who will probably be holding out on us and who we can’t trust. A god who is not really good and so we basically say, I’m in control, I’m doing life my way, I will build my security. You know what? I’ll give some, maybe a little words and comments and, yeah, I want to believe in God but when pressure comes, I’m in control. This deal is about me and my life and what I can do.

And our sense is that there is some way, maybe someday, we can earn God’s favor. That is hardwired into human beings. And Jesus is going to destroy that.

So what can we learn about the three main characters? First, the son’s request. Pick it up in verse 12 here. The son’s request. He says to his father, “I want mine now.”

This is completely culturally never done, completely unacceptable. In fact, in this particular culture, even today, you never even discuss inheritance. Never even discuss it. In fact, I don’t have time to develop it, but the little speech about his dad, he phrases a number, he uses three or four different words to get around the word. He doesn’t say, “I want my inheritance.”

Basically, he says, “I want what is coming to me,” and he avoids that because once you get the inheritance, two things happen. You not only get the property and the money that is due you, but you also get the responsibility of taking over that part of the family when that happens.

He wants his stuff, but he doesn’t want any of the responsibility. In fact, what he is really saying, his son’s message is, “I wish you were dead.” This son is revealing his heart. He is rebellious, he is self-centered, he is cruel, and he is callous. He doesn’t care about the father, he doesn’t care how he feels, “I wish you were dead. I just want what I can get, and I want it right now.”

The implications for the father, economically and socially, this is where it gets interesting. According to Jewish law, the older son got a double portion of any inheritance. According to Jewish law, you could get your inheritance, you could possess it, but it wouldn’t be dispossessed.

In other words, so you could actually, it would be yours but the father has authority over it until he dies and then it’s yours to spend. So this son comes and says, “I want mine now.”

Well, first of all, the men in the village, when they heard this, their natural response would be, Take him out. Take him out. He has shamed the father, he has shamed the village, we don’t want those kind of people here. Kick him out of the family, banish him. That would have been the normal response.

The father doesn’t do that. They are listening to this story going, No father would do this!

Second thing that is happening is is that he didn’t go down to the bank and say, “Well, I need to cash in some of my 401k or I’ll tell you what…” Wealth was not liquid. He had land and property that generation after generation after generation had been given his family. Then he had barns and then he had livestock.

For this younger son to ask for this now, he is squandering the future. Twenty, thirty, forty years later when this father is going to die, his estate is going to be this big, not this big. And so he says, “I want it now.”

So he is the younger son, so he gets a third of the estate. And the only way to get the third of the estate is the father, now, is completely embarrassed. He looks like a fool.

He is selling property. Well, isn’t that your family property? “Yeah!” You’re selling your livestock? “Yeah!” You’re selling two of your barns? “Yeah!” Why? “I’m going to give a third of all that I have to this son and not only that he can possess it, but I’m going to let him have it.”

Literally, a little phrase later, he gets his things together, the phrase literally means he cashed out. And, by the way, he would be ridiculed. He would be scorned. People would be talking about, Do you believe this guy? Do you believe this kid? This is the most ruthless, selfish, narcissistic…

So he is going to sell it fast. What happens when you sell stuff fast? Right? I think in business you guys call it a “fire sale.” You don’t get a lot for it.

And so he is completely discrediting his father. So the father now, economically, huge implication.

Socially, huge. You fool. You should have kicked him out of the family. By all rights, a rebellious son at this level, you might jot down Deuteronomy chapter 21: 18 to 21. A rebellious son in some cultures, in the law, you could stone him.

The father is giving this son the exact opposite of what anyone in this village could ever fathom any father would ever do. He is a notorious sinner in his actions. Now, be thinking about, Why is Jesus telling this story? And who is Jesus hanging out with? And what are these very religious people, who know the Bible backwards and forwards and they tithe down to the mint and the herbs.

The father’s unprecedented response shocked His audience. That’s putting it mildly. They were absolutely undone. And at this point, they are not thinking highly of the father. Stupid. Foolish. What is he thinking? He is violating hundreds of years of culture in our village.

Finally, we learn not only about the young son, who is a selfish, I’m in it for me, I’m going to be in control of my life; a father that doesn’t seem to make sense who actually takes the shame on him instead of the son; and then now we have the older son’s shocking silence reveals he has a broken relationship with his father and a broken relationship with his younger brother.

At the very bottom, I put the book that I told you about of the man who lived in the Middle Eastern culture for sixty years. And he said, “I have taught this message of Luke 15 thousands of times and when I get to this portion of it and I say, ‘There is a rift in the family. The father and the younger son – who should solve this?’” And he said one thousand out of a thousand times: the older brother, that’s his job.

In the Middle East you don’t want to lose face. It would have been the older brother’s job to go to the younger brother and say, “What are you thinking, you little idiot? How do you think it makes dad feel? What are you doing to the inheritance? In fact, what are you doing to me? You’re making a laughing stock in the village! Now, there’s no way you’re going to do – hey, Dad, I’m really, really sorry. Let me work something out.”

And he would negotiate or he would put a pact together so that he could resolve this. The older brother was responsible, as his role in the family, because he is going to be the new head of the family.

He is silent. He doesn’t care how his father is viewed. And he doesn’t care about his younger brother. So that’s what we learn about the three main characters.

Now, let’s dig in and what can we learn about ourselves? Because the younger brother doesn’t just represent these lost, immoral people of that day. It’s really a picture of all of us, left to ourselves, and our attitude toward God the Father.

And so you notice it says he went to a distant country. We know from what he does it’s a Gentile area. And he goes to this distant country and he has cashed out and basically what he has done is he squanders all of the father’s resources.

Now, this was also very interesting to me as I have studied this. Because you always wonder, his older brother says he – I don’t know if it was his own thinking, If I would have left, this is how I would have squandered it. Because we never know how. But he goes, “This son of yours squandered it with prostitutes.”

And that certainly may be the case and historically, an immoral lifestyle seems to be a part of this. But one of the other things that is interesting is if you would go to a different land in this time, to win friends and influence people, you would have parties. You would want to be seen as generous. You would want to get acceptance. And you’re in this Gentile area.

And he’s got a lot of money. And so he is inviting a lot of friends and having a lot of parties and they are probably pretty wild parties. And everyone is, “Oh, it’s great, great, great! He’s the guy that’s got the stuff!”

And then pretty soon, because they are all friendships based on, “This guy is going to pay the bill; we’ll go party with him.” And then it says, “A severe famine comes.” And the word severe and famine is, picture in your mind a Compassion or a World Vision commercial with the little kids with their little tiny bodies and their ribs sticking out. That’s this.

And there was no government, there were no relief organizations, in other words, there are no crops. And so he finds himself, and in this culture, you don’t help foreigners. You take care of your own family at best.

And so he is out of money, he is in the Gentile world, his big party lifestyle is upside down. And now he is stuck. And he goes through this internal time of, What am I going to do?

And so, literally, the phrase is: “He hires himself out.” Literally the word is: “He attached himself to,” a business person there. The words used here, probably it was someone of wealth, who even in the famine, had resources.

And this Gentile doesn’t want to help him. And so the picture here, if you have a Jewish boy, you don’t want to help him, but there is some sort of social obligation, what do you do? You give him a job that you know he can’t do. This is sort of like, maybe some of you have experienced this, a company decides they want to get rid of someone but they don’t want to fire them and so they give them a job that they know they will hate. “We are transferring you to Siberia!” “We are going to have you,” they have been out on the field, “we would like you on the desk and the hours are from six a.m. because we, actually, it’s actually from 3 a.m. to, because we want you to do work with…”

You just create a job where the person goes, “I can’t do this,” so they quit. And that’s what happens here. He is given a job, it’s absolutely the lowest point that you could ever get at.

And he’s looking at what the pigs eat. And then notice he has a turning point. And the turning point is interesting. He comes to his senses. And I would like to suggest that the reason he came to his senses was he was really hungry. He was really desperate.

And the memory of his father, in the Jewish culture at the time, there was a bondservant, if you read through the Old Testament, this is someone who served a master and there is such a love relationship, at some point in time, he says, “I never want to not be your servant.” And, literally, they would go against a post and they would take an awl and they would drive a hole and they would put an earring and that would mean he is a bondservant, a part of this family.

And he just says, “I’m a part of the family.” He would be well taken care of and, “I never want to be sold; I never want to leave.” Then there were other servants or slaves and then there were hired workers.

The bondservants would often live in the house; the hired workers would often live on the estate, the other servants; and then there were the casual workers. And this is the word he is referring to. These were people, like if you go to a Wal-Mart parking lot, if you go to a Target parking lot and people who are looking for work and they are just hanging out, hoping that, “Hey, do you need some help today?” That’s what these people did.

They got up every day, they lived in town, didn’t have any regular work, they were called “hired help.” And what goes through this guy’s mind is, his father is good and kind and generous, because he wouldn’t have to do this. But he takes care of the bondservants, he takes care of the slaves on the estate, but these hired workers, all they really deserve is, “Hey, look, here is your paycheck,” but no, no, no, no. They are treated like family. They eat plenty. He takes care of them.

He is now remembering what kind of man his father is. And he realizes, at this point, and by the way, this is how a lot of us come to the Father. It’s called desperation. I would love it if it was in some great, holy moment we said, You know what? My life is so wonderful. I don’t know if there really is a God. But I think out of the goodness and wonderfulness of my heart I think I will pursue the God that is.

The fact of the matter is we are high-control people who tend to be very selfish by nature. We get it very naturally. You don’t have to teach your kids to be selfish. You don’t have to teach your kids to fight. You don’t have to teach your kids to be greedy. And when they grow up they become like us where we do it in very sophisticated ways where we can actually look nice and sweet and still be selfish and greedy. Right? You guys don’t like that too much, but it’s true.

And it’s when we are desperate. It’s when we realize, You know what? I can’t make this marriage work. Or, You know what? I have been to a lot of doctors and this isn’t going to go away. Or, I have tried this job, this job, this job and by now I thought I would be here and I’m here. Or, I am struggling and I’m discouraged and I am depressed and I am trying hard to have a positive attitude and I have listened to those self-help tapes but it’s just not working.

At some point, where you find yourself next to a bed with one of your children in ICU and you don’t know if they are going to make it. And all of a sudden, the reality of what matters in life versus all the stuff and all the junk and all the pressure and you cry out to God like never before.

And what is amazing is, instead of being consistent and going, Wow, I noticed when things were going well you weren’t talking to Me much. You meet a God whose arms are open. And that’s what Jesus is trying to teach them.
In the Jewish culture at the time, there was a bondservant, if you read through the Old Testament, this is someone who served a master and there is such a love relationship, at some point in time, he says, “I never want to not be your servant.” And he just says, “I’m a part of the family.” He would be well taken care of and, “I never want to be sold; I never want to leave.”

And what goes through this guy’s mind is, his father is good and kind and generous, because he wouldn’t have to do this. But he takes care of the bondservants, he takes care of the slaves on the estate, but these hired workers, all they really deserve is, “Hey, look, here is your paycheck,” but no, no, no, no. They are treated like family. They eat plenty. He takes care of them.

He is now remembering what kind of man his father is. And he realizes, at this point, and by the way, this is how a lot of us come to the Father. It’s called desperation. I would love it if it was in some great, holy moment we said, You know what? My life is so wonderful. I don’t know if there really is a God. But I think out of the goodness and wonderfulness of my heart I think I will pursue the God that is.

The fact of the matter is we are high-control people who tend to be very selfish by nature. We get it very naturally. You don’t have to teach your kids to be selfish. You don’t have to teach your kids to fight. You don’t have to teach your kids to be greedy. And when they grow up they become like us where we do it in very sophisticated ways where we can actually look nice and sweet and still be selfish and greedy. Right? You guys don’t like that too much, but it’s true.

And it’s when we are desperate. It’s when we realize, You know what? I can’t make this marriage work. At some point, where you find yourself next to a bed with one of your children in ICU and you don’t know if they are going to make it. And all of a sudden, the reality of what matters in life versus all the stuff and all the junk and all the pressure and you cry out to God like never before.

And what is amazing is, instead of being consistent and going, Wow, I noticed when things were going well you weren’t talking to Me much. You meet a God whose arms are open. And that’s what Jesus is trying to teach them.

And so he decides that he is going to put a little speech together. He says, “I’ll go back home, so I’ll return.” And you might put in parentheses “repent.” There is a partial repentance, but it’s not full.

He still doesn’t get it. There is a partial repentance. What he is repenting of is the consequences and realizing doing life his way doesn’t work, so he is going to return. This is a logical movement. Second, he goes, “I will confess.” So he is going to at least come clean and there is a new self-awareness. “Look, I fell short, I have sinned, I sinned against God, I sinned against you, Dad. Okay?”

But notice he is going, “I will make restitution.” See, his point is he is going to go back in that village and he is going to say, “I don’t expect to live in the house as a son, I don’t expect to be a bondservant, I don’t even expect to be one of those slaves who are on the estate. What I want to do is I want to come back and I’m going to live in town and I am going to come and I am going to start paying off my debt. I am going to pay it, I’m going to pay it, I’m going to pay it until after a while, we are going to get the balance sheet right and maybe, just maybe, if I do really well, maybe I can get into your good graces again.” That’s his game plan.

In fact, He was absolutely teaching consistent with the rabbinic teaching of the time. And then, finally, he says, “I’ll do it now.” So he got up and he went. He got up and he went.

Now, the expectations and fears and perspective of what is going to happen from a Middle Eastern peasant village really gets pretty exciting at this point. And this is when we learn some really, really amazing things about God.

So we pick up the text. He has come to his senses. He has got his speech all ready. “So he went to his father,” verse 20, “and while he was still a long way off,” and you might circle these key words, “his father saw him and was filled with compassion and he ran to his son and he threw his arms around him and he kissed him.”

Now, again, you need to understand, if this would have happened in this day, from this village, from this mindset, here is how it is supposed to work. Here’s how it always works. This picture is crazy, this picture has never, ever happened before, it is never going to happen. This is a crazy, crazy, crazy picture.

The son is gone, the father never goes looking for him, he has already declared before the village, in fact, they had a special ceremony when a kid would go through this. It was called a “Kezazah.” And it was a ceremony, they would declare, “My son is dead.” And the village would come together and say, “He is unworthy; he doesn’t represent our village anymore.”

There is a much bigger communal mindset of these kind of people. And so, “Hey, he is done. He can’t come back here. There is no room for him. He’s dead.” That would be the typical response of a father.

Now, if he did come back with his tail between his legs, as he is, here is what he would expect. First of all, the young boys in the village, preteens and teenagers, would heckle and mock and they would throw dirt and throw stones at him.

If his father didn’t get there before the elders of the village, the elders could rightfully, because of the disgrace on his father and the disgrace of the village, they could have stoned him. That’s what he deserved.

And so the reason he didn’t get up and just go immediately was, he was afraid. So he had to get really, really, really hungry like, You know what? I don’t have a good option. I don’t even have a bad option. But this is my only option. So I am going to go and I am going to hope maybe my dad will be gracious and I can be a hired hand.

And do you understand what Jesus, do you understand the picture He is making of God the Father? See, because this younger son is the prostitutes and the tax collectors – this younger son is all of us, all of us apart from the work of Christ.

All of us selfish, whether we are sophisticated or not, all of our immorality, all of our greed, all of our stuff, all of our: “My way, I want mine, I want it now,” mindset.

And here is the picture of God. First of all, he saw him from a long way off. That meant every single day he must have gone looking. The second thing He says he is motivated. It says he is filled with compassion. The word is splagchnon. Literally, it’s your gut or your intestines.

In Jewish culture, the seat, they thought it was down in your gut because you know with something emotional happens? You know how something happens down deep in your stomach and it kind of moves? They thought that the real heart of emotions was down in here. And it means to be deeply moved, to be deeply moved, to be emotionally touched.

And so he is looking and he cares and he has this heart and instead of rejecting or “he is dead to me,” he sees him and then he does the unthinkable. He runs. Literally the word is he “sprinted,” or he “raced.”

And he would have had a robe so he would have lifted up his robe and run. A man twenty-five and older never ran in a Jewish village. Children run. A man would never show his ankles or his knees. That would be absolutely shameful, culturally unacceptable.

The father doesn’t care what anybody thinks. So he runs. And then when he runs, he throws his arms around him and he embraces him. The kid can’t get through the speech.

And then the word for “kissing,” he kisses him repeatedly. There is this sense of: that which was precious. It’s a picture of a little girl lost in the woods and all of us have fanned out for two and a half days and we don’t think she can live and the rangers and there are helicopters and everyone has been looking. And someone finds her and they pick her up. And the cameras are there and then they take this little girl and her mom and dad see the little girl and she is alive. That is what is happening here.

And the Pharisees are going, What? See, He has just redefined the Father heart of God for them. And He has just redefined the Father heart of God for us. That’s how God feels about you when you are far away. That’s how God feels about me. That’s how God feels about people who are living together. That’s how God feels about people with sexual and porn addictions. That’s how God feels about alcoholic and prescription addictions. That’s how God feels about people who are skimming and doing things at work that are illegal. That’s how God feels about moms and dads who are involved in affairs on the side. That’s how God feels about people who have left their kids and done some really stupid and painful things. That’s how God feels about all of us.

It’s grace! It’s something in Him that compels Him to love you. It’s not something in you or me that compels Him to love us. It’s His goodness. It’s His grace. It’s His generosity.

It’s mindboggling, isn’t it? And when you see it, culturally, you can understand why in the world these Pharisees are…

Well, notice the story goes on. So the son goes from a partial repentance, right? He has come back. He has said the right words. But, see, the son always thought of sin like the Pharisees and like most of us.

Sin is breaking a rule. The word “sin” means, “missing the mark.” Literally it is, “to fall short of the glory of God.” And it is used in ancient literature of someone shooting a bow and it falling short of the target.

The word “transgression” also translated “sin” is there is a line, do not cross the line, I transgress, I cross the line. And I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway. But what people tend to think of sin is, “Don’t break the rules.”

And so the Pharisees were really good at keeping the rules. Sin always is primarily not an issue about rules. It is about relationship. The younger son, when he repented, I broke the rules, here are the consequences, I’ve got to go back, okay, I’m going to say my speech, got it right, verbalize what is right, I am going to work my way back.

See, his idea was, he is still in control. Oh, I am going to love God my way, on my terms, how I think. And he got through half of his speech and he got overwhelmed, I think, with emotion. He knew he should be getting dirt and stones from the kids, he knew the elders could come and stone him. Although, it was legal but rarely practiced.

And instead, he is being received. It’s the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And now his heart changes. And he could have had one of those, “Oh, hey,” false humility, “oh no, Dad, no, Dad! Hey! You know what? I blew it. I’m a real man and I blew it and I took a third of the estate. I’ll just be a hired man. I’ll just go, I’ll be, I’ll be in the city. I’ll work my way back.”

And as so often, when people get desperate, they cry out to God and that is the attitude. We miss God’s grace. There is nothing you can do earn your way to God. There is nothing you can do to earn your way back to God.

And so notice, let’s look at what grace looks like. What does the Father actually do? Notice he says, “Quick!” And he says it to the servants. Because the servants are, I’ve got news for you, the servants are, He is dead to us! You messed over our master. And so the first person he does, he says to the servants, “Quick! Get the best robe.”

And they are thinking, The best one? That’s yours! “Go get it.” So now, instead of being an outcast, the servants know, Hey, we are taking him to the house and we are putting the father’s robe on him. He is going to be treated well because we can’t shame him if the father is taking the shame. It’s not just a robe. The robe was one of honor.

Second, “Put a ring on his finger.” This is a signet ring. The way you did finances, you didn’t have a black American Express card. You didn’t have a Capital One back then, okay? The way you did business, there would be a signet ring that would be your family’s signet ring.

The kid has blown off a third of their wealth and their estate and mortgaged their future. And the father goes, “You’re back in with authority to even do finances.” He should be whipped within an inch of his life! “Put sandals on his feet.” Slaves go barefooted. A son has sandals.

He is a son. “I trust him.” The fatted calf, literally, it’s a grain-fed calf. This is Kobe beef time. A little feast, you might get a little goat. A bigger feast, you might get a little lamb, maybe even a sheep. A big feast? Beef! And don’t miss this. The feast is not for the kid. The feast is the father’s. It is his joy. It’s his joy.

“My son was lost and my son has been found.” It’s the marriage supper of the Lamb. It’s what those of you who know Christ personally will experience. It’s the Father’s party.

And there is a celebration. And the whole town shows up. Word spreads. In a village like this? Bing, bing, bing, bing. Everybody knows what is going on! Word spreads like crazy.

The father’s response is shocking, scandalous, and completely unexpected as he takes the shame his son deserves. It’s scandalous. The Pharisees have never heard a story like this in their lives. The disciples have never, as long as they have been with Jesus, they have never, ever pictured God in this way.

This is long before it was written, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever would believe in Him shouldn’t perish but have eternal, everlasting life.”

This was before Titus would write, “Not by works of righteousness that you have done, but according to His mercy He has saved us, by the washing and regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

And so what He has done is He has redefined for the Pharisees, and He has modeled, these tax collectors and sinners are younger sons. And Jesus has modeled the Father’s love, “I’m going after them. And I eat with them, and I accept them, and I love them. Is their behavior and the breaking of the rules acceptable? No. But they matter. And they are not going to know by Me sticking My nose and thinking I am better and being separate from them” – Pharisees. “So that’s why I’m doing what I am doing, because God loves lost people.”

And lost people come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. And some are religious and some are not. And some are desperate and some are the prostitutes or the people who are working in the clubs.

And some are the squeaky clean business, upstanding, totally in control, I’ve got my stuff together, I don’t need God, selfish, greedy, high-control, far from God sinners. It’s never too late. That’s what Jesus is teaching.

There is always hope. I don’t care where you’re at, I don’t care, when you think about the person who is farthest from God and you don’t think there is any hope and you stopped praying for them about five years ago because they are so out of it and they…

There is always hope, because God longs to forgive. He longs to restore. Not because that person deserves it, or you deserve it, or I deserve it. It’s because He is good. I don’t get it!

This is crazy, radical stuff. It’s an invitation for relationship, for lost sons and daughters to come and be at home with God. And then you know what? He serves his father in his home, not because he oughta, gotta, shoulda. But he realizes he is loved and he can trust his father.

I’m going to pray in just a second and if you have never, it’s receiving a gift. It’s empty hands of faith, I believe Jesus died for me and rose from the dead. Come into my life. I am going to receive this free gift and begin to walk with You.

For a great many of you that that is already true, who is one person who comes to mind who you just don’t think God could ever reach? And now I would like you to pray for them, okay?