Hello and welcome.
I'm Pastor Taylor Gearin here at First Baptist Church of Vel Doreto.
I'm glad you've chosen to join us.
We're in a series now called Stories from Above, the Parables of Luke.
And it's just been a great time hearing these stories of Jesus, these earthly stories that give us a heavenly lesson about what God's up to and how we live in light of the kingdom of God.
And so I hope you will enjoy it, and we hope to even see you in person real soon.
Amen.
If you'll open with me to Luke chapter 15.
Luke chapter 15, beginning in verse 11.
And today we will go through verse 24.
Luke chapter 15, 11 through 24.
As you are finding it, when you find it, I will uh read that text for us, and it begins like this.
And he said, There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me my share of the property that is coming to me.
And he divided his property between them.
Not many days later the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.
And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs, and he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger?
I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Treat me as one of your hired servants.
And he arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
For this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate.
Pray with me.
Lord Jesus, thank you for your word.
Thank you for the truth of this word.
Teach us and transform us by your spirit through the truth of this word.
We ask this in Christ's name.
Amen.
A child of the Father, despising the Father, in need of the Father, and at home with the Father.
That's the direction we're going this morning.
A child of the Father, despising the Father, in need of the Father, at home with the Father.
That's not only the direction of our parable here in Luke chapter 15, that's really the direction of the entirety of Scripture.
You and I, and as we think of humanity, we're at home with the Father, and yet through our disobedience, we we left the Father's side, despising the Father.
We found ourselves in need of the Father in our own sin, and because of the work of Christ coming to us, but now we can be counted as those who are at home with the Father.
So it's not just the story of Luke 15, it's the story of all of Scripture.
But as we arrive here this morning, let's arrive with the context we saw last week that Jesus is speaking throughout these parables to the Pharisees in the crowd.
The Pharisees are angry in this moment because Jesus is ready and willing to welcome sinners and tax collectors.
And the Pharisees who have no understanding of the reality of the kingdom of God don't understand why Jesus would associate himself with these types of people.
And so Jesus wants to show him what the kingdom of God is truly like.
He does it first with the parable of the lost sheep, then through the parable of the lost coin.
And this week we're going to see the younger lost son before we take the Lord's Supper next week, and then the week following, see another lost son, the older son.
But I want us to see, uh, beginning, uh, a child of the father, verse 11.
And he said, that's Jesus.
Jesus said, There was a man who had two sons.
There was a man who had two sons.
So who is at the center of the story?
It is the man who had two sons.
It is the father.
The emphasis of the story is on the father and what the father is up to.
It doesn't say there was a younger son who had a father and an older brother.
It doesn't say there was an older son who had a younger brother and a father.
It says there was a man who had two sons.
And what we have from the beginning is setting the scene that the children are children of the father, and they are at home with the father.
Really, we begin here where the other two parables up to this point have ended.
We had one sheep who was lost by the end of it at home with the shepherd.
We had a coin that was lost, and by the end of it, at home in this woman's bank account.
Now we have these two sons who are at home with the Father.
This is where they reside, and everything they know of life, they know because they are at home with the Father.
They live under his authority, but even more, they live under his care.
They've grown up in the home.
They celebrated birthdays in the home.
Everything they've known in life has been under the care of the Father, has been given to them by the Father.
They are children of the Father.
Last week I had the privilege of taking my family on a brief little trip for a few days, and we just got to go do some fun things.
We went up to Kansas City and, you know, Science Museum and this place, that place, a ball game, great restaurants.
We went to one restaurant, a great barbecue place, Jack Stack, that uh a judge in the room uh recommended I go to, and I did not appeal that ruling.
I went, and I am glad that I did, because it was fantastic, and and and we ate just as much as we wanted, and it was so good.
And then when the bill came out, when they brought the check to the table, I I did not do this.
I did not look to James and Olivia and look at them and say, Hey, mom and dad are getting a few other meals this trip.
If you two could pick up this tab, that'd be great.
When we went to the Science Museum and Legoland and all these places that somehow all similarly put the gift shop right at the exit.
And we went to these places, and not at every stop, but at one of the stops, my children looked and asked if we could get one thing.
I didn't look to them at one of the stops, not all the stops.
I didn't look to them and say, absolutely not.
I looked to them and said, let's pick out one thing.
I didn't say go grab your piggy bank and we can talk about what thing you can afford.
I just said, go pick out one thing.
Why?
Why did I treat my children that way?
Well, because I'm a normal human father.
Uh, but because of this, they're children of my home, Katie's home.
They're they're children of our home.
They don't have to pay rent each month.
They don't have to bring money to the table.
They don't owe us anything.
Uh they are just children of the home, and therefore they get the benefits of living in our home, certainly under our authority, but also under our care.
And guess what?
Katie and I delight to care for them.
These two sons are children of the father.
Everything they need is taken care of.
Everything they want, they have.
And the father delights, not out of duty, but out of delight, delights to care for his children.
So we have these children of the father.
There was a man who had two sons, a child of the father, but now we see this, despising the father.
And the younger of them, verse 12, said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that's coming to me.
And he divided his property between them.
Now here is a strange moment.
This younger son looks to his father and says, I'm ready for my inheritance, and I'm ready for it now.
I'm ready for what is coming.
Now we all know how an inheritance works, and to receive an inheritance, the person providing that inheritance has obviously passed away, and the one receiving that now lays claim to that inheritance.
Yet this son says to the father, if we could just put it bluntly, he says this, Father, you are worth more to me dead than you are alive.
Then I I'm ready for what's coming to me, but I don't want to have to wait for it.
Again, you're worth more to me dead than you are alive, so would you give me my inheritance?
Now here's what's interesting: this is the younger son.
So likely it would have been the case in this time that the older son would have gotten two-thirds of the property of the inher inheritance, and the younger would have gotten a third of it.
And so this young son looks and says, I want my third now.
Well, I'm sure this father was uh a very wealthy man, but likely didn't just have the cash on hand.
He had to liquidate, he had to quite literally had to sell off some of his property in order to uh turn that into cash to give to his son.
Uh the audacity that his son would ask for this.
But what's even more wild to me is how the verse ends that he divided the property between them, that the father goes through with this plan that looks at his son and says, I'll give it to you.
In every way, this is a picture of the younger son despising his father.
This is a picture of the the son saying, I want everything that the father can offer me.
I just don't want the father.
I want everything the father, I want every benefit of being a child of the father, but if we could just leave the father out of the equation.
And if we're being honest, that's what we do every time we rebel against our Lord.
God, I want every benefit you can offer.
I just want to do it my way.
I don't necessarily want you involved.
And yet think of our very rebellion against the Lord.
Think about this for a second.
For me to even look up to heaven, and if I were to rebel against him and say, uh, Lord Jesus, I don't want to do things your way, I don't want to follow your path.
Guess what I need in order to do that?
I need the breath in my lungs that only he can provide.
He's got to provide the oxygen I need so that I can utter my rebellion against him.
For me to have life, even right now, this morning, everything I have, everything I am, is because he gives that to me.
For this son, everything is the father's, and he wants it all, but he just wants the father to stay out of it.
The father agrees, uh 13.
Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had.
Now, let's remember, all he had means all that the father has given him.
The younger son has brought nothing to the table.
He gathers all that he had, and he took a journey into the far country.
Now it's interesting in this parable that Jesus just calls it the far country.
He could have been more specific with this parable.
He was the one telling the parable.
He could have inserted any town he wanted.
If they were uh up in Galilee, he could have said he went down to the big city of Jerusalem.
He he went a few miles outside to Jericho.
He could have inserted any city he wanted, but instead he just said he took a journey to the far country.
Well, why be vague in this moment?
I think it might be because of this.
Because maybe you've never been to Jerusalem or Jericho.
But I would argue that everyone in this room knows what it is to go to the far country.
That if there's 300 people in this room, the far country may look a little different for every person in this room, but we know what it is to go to the far country.
To those places where our selfishness and our ego and our own desires take us because we want to be on the throne of our own lives, those places that we run from the Father who gives us all things, we know what it is to go to the far country and live in the far country.
And not only this, we know what it is to squander everything the Lord has given us.
That's what it says next.
And there he squandered his property in reckless living.
I think that phrase, squandering his property in reckless living, is probably uh the very sanitized version of what this child did.
In fact, we'll see in a couple of weeks when the older son talks about what his son has what his younger brother has done in the far country, he gives a much more detailed response, a lot less sanitized.
But here we just see that he squandered everything in the far country.
This word squander just means to toss up into the wind.
Everything the father gave him, the son just tossed into the wind, and it was all gone.
Reckless living, sinful desires.
The uh younger son wanted to flee from the place that in his mind was the place of rule and regulation and restriction, and he said, I want freedom, and I want freedom on my terms, and he comes to this place, and for a little bit he finds what he thinks is freedom, and yet in this moment he finds that all has now been lost.
Verse 14.
And when he had spent everything, when all his money is gone, when he is broke, a severe famine arose in the country, and he began to be in need.
It's fascinating the trajectory here, because I imagine for a few days in the far country, this young man is just having the time of his life and probably believes that everything he wanted is now his, and probably believes that that I was right to do this.
In fact, I should have done it a long time ago.
Because he probably has a big entourage around him because he's probably paying the bill.
He he probably everything in his mind is going right until uh the money runs out.
And it's fascinating again the trajectory.
Not only is it when he spent everything, but when he spends everything, the text says a severe famine arose.
Have you ever noticed in life that's how it works?
That that that it's almost like one storm of life just uh compounds upon the next storm of life?
That I'm I'm already broke, and then the famine comes.
Uh if you don't uh notice that in your own life, let me ask you this question.
Has your washer and dryer unit ever gone out when your savings account has been right where it needed to be?
Has that ever happened for anybody?
Or does that unit go out the week after both your cars at home needed new tires?
Is that when it goes out?
That sometimes issues compound upon issues, but but in a much deeper way, obviously, than washer-dryer units, in the reality that in our lives sometimes we are in storms, and at the very time we are in a storm of life, a hurricane of life comes.
That trial upon trial upon hardship comes upon us.
And I believe there are these times in life where so much trial comes upon us that that we can't do anything else but find out that we are at rock bottom and we need help outside of ourselves.
And maybe you look at some piece of suffering that you've walked through, and in the moment, maybe that suffering didn't make sense, maybe still doesn't make perfect sense, and maybe it it of course wasn't enjoyable, and yet you look back and realize that piece of suffering was what brought me to the place where I knew I needed a savior.
I needed Jesus to do what I could not do.
I needed the Lord to intervene in my life in a way that I was not capable of.
This young man is about to find himself at rock bottom, but in reality he's not there yet.
Verse 15.
He's completely broke, a famine comes, so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.
The young man says, I'm completely out of money, I need a job.
Well, the job market's not great when there's a famine in the region.
He does find one place to work.
There's a man who says, I will let you go feed my pigs.
Now, this is obviously humiliating.
Number one, a week ago, this guy uh was was the top in town.
This this guy was the new guy in town who had all the money he could ever ask for, the most popular guy in town.
Everybody wanted to be around him, and a week later, what's he doing?
He's forced to feed the pigs.
But it's not just humiliating in that sense, it's also humiliating the fact that a good Jew would never look for a job feeding pigs.
Because pigs are obviously, for a good Jew, a very unclean animal.
This is the essence of humiliation, the essence of rock bottom, so we think.
But he's not quite at rock bottom yet, because look at the next verse, verse 16.
And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.
We're getting closer to rock bottom.
He's in the pig pen and he's hungry, and he looks around and he sees these pigs are at least eating.
They're eating something that seems edible, and he is longing to eat what the pigs are eating.
Here's what I believe is rock bottom, the end of that verse, and no one gave him anything.
That he couldn't even get a hold of what the pigs were eating, so that he could get a meal.
If you want to talk about humiliation, look at this that the the the owner of these pigs is looking to this man, and he is quite literally saying this my pigs are worth more to me than your life.
If we have this many pods, they're going to the pigs, they're not going to you.
The man who had everything is now feeding pigs, longing to be fed by the pigs, and is not fed by the pigs.
This is the child of the father despising the father.
This is where he has landed.
And I just want to ask you this question before we move on.
Have you been in this moment?
Have you entered the the pig pen of your own life?
This sounds strange, it does, but but I would tell every advertising marketing agency in the world.
This sounds weird for a pastor to say that if you want to be the best marketing agency in the world, you ought to study what the devil is up to.
Because no one can paint a better picture of something than him.
No one can make something bad look better than the devil's able to do.
Because we've all been in those moments where the the evil one has promised us something.
That if we can just take hold of this sin, that it'll finally be what gives us satisfaction or validation or security or assurance.
If I can just get hold of that, and every time we get to the other side of it and we find out that the devil has very much over-promised, very much underdelivered, and we find out that we no longer have the sin, the sin has us, that where we have landed, what we thought would put us exactly where we need to be, now we find ourselves in the pig pen.
And you have found yourself, I've found myself in those very moments where all I can do is look up and say, How in the world did I get here?
And then I look and I realize it was my own sin.
A child of the Father, despising the Father, and then I see this in need of the Father.
Verse 17 But when he came to him.
You could say it like this.
When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough food?
But I perish here with hunger.
I will arise and go to my father.
I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you I am no longer to be uh worthy to be called your son.
Treat me as one of your hired servants.
He comes to his senses and says, You know, back home, the servants of my father, they're at least getting three meals a day.
The servants of my father, they they at least have a pillow to lay their head upon at night and a roof over their head.
Basically, this uh being a servant of my father is a lot better than what I've got going on right now.
And it's interesting, we we might bring up uh uh two thoughts here.
Number one is well, i is this the son really taking the initiative and doing the work of, in a sense, saving himself because he's remembering the father and and he's making the decision, pulling himself up by the bootstraps and the decision to go back home.
You know, the sheep needed a shepherd to come find him, the coin needed this woman to come find the coin.
It is is is this guy really taking initiative in his own life?
Well, let's remember this.
I love what Helmut Telica, the German theologian of the 20th century, says, and very simply as he's preaching this, says this there can be a homecoming because there is a home.
Why does this young son know there's there's there's hope for him?
Because there's a home.
Why does he believe that maybe some type of homecoming is possible because he knows back home there is a father who might just maybe could be waiting upon him?
We might also wonder this question are uh isn't he thinking about coming home under the complete wrong motivations?
Why does he want to return to the father?
He says, because they've got meals there, they've got beds to lay on there.
Are these the proper motivations?
I'm not sure his motivations are perfect, but but I am thankful he's going in the direction of the Father.
If right now, this morning, someone were to walk into this sanctuary and and sit down on a back pew and listen to a sermon because of no other reason than this, it's hot outside, and I've got a feeling they've got air conditioning inside.
What I will say to that person is, I'm so glad you're here.
Come for the air conditioning and hang around for the father.
That motivations may not be perfect to get you here, but my goodness, you're among the people of God and you're hearing about the love of God.
And I'm thankful that in the far country this young man had enough sense to come to himself and say, there might be a homecoming because there is a home.
There might be a father who could welcome me in, not as a son, that's obviously out the window, but maybe as a servant.
Verse 20, the very beginning of verse 20.
And he arose and came to his father.
Now we stop there for just a moment because here's the reality.
Everything about this story hinges on the words that come next.
But I take it a step further.
Everything about every story hinges on the words that come next.
Everything about your eternal salvation, the state of your soul, both now and for eternity, hinges on the words that come next.
And he arose and came to his father.
And if the next words say this, and the father saw him and uh hated the fact that he was coming home and told him, Never show your face here again, you've made too much of a mess of things.
We're in big trouble this morning.
But verse 20 continues this way, and he arose and came to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
He rose and came to his father, but while still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, ran and embraced him and kissed him.
Remember, this story is being told for the Pharisees in the crowd.
What in the world are they thinking in this moment?
They were mad a few minutes ago because Jesus was willing to associate with sinners and tax collectors, and now Jesus is telling this story that's very much against them, where Jesus is showing this picture of the kingdom of God that looks so different than what they have in mind.
Because in Jesus' picture of the kingdom of God, the sinners and the tax collectors, they get to come home.
They get to be a part of the father's house.
And not just that, but it's how they come home.
That the father actually goes out and runs to the child.
The child who, by the way, has come here from the pig pen, uh smells like a pig, uh, is is muddy, his shoes worn out.
Everything that could have gone wrong in the far country has gone wrong, and everything that the father gave him has been wasted.
And here he comes home.
He's prepared his speech to come home as a servant, and the father actually runs to him, has compassion on him, uh, throws his arms around his neck and kisses his son.
Verse 21 the son said to him, he's been practicing the whole way home, so he's got to get his speech out.
Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
But the father interrupts him.
Because in the father's minds, there there uh there's no speech that that my son can give about coming home as a servant.
Because sons of the father are not servants of the father.
You you are a son.
The father interrupts this speech or this attempt at a speech, and he simply says this.
He looks to his servants, verse 22 bring quickly the best robe.
The best robe would have been the father's robe, bring the best robe and put it on him.
Put a ring on his hand.
This would have been the signet ring that uh signifies whose family you are a part of.
And I promise you this servants don't wear the ring, sons wear the ring.
Put the ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
The feet that have taken everything the father offered and ran as far away from home as he could get, the feet that have spent days and weeks in the pig pen, that are dirty, uh, put shoes on his feet.
And I love verse 23, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
To kill the fattened calf would have meant we are having a serious party tonight.
But I love that the father says, Go kill the fattened calf.
He doesn't say this.
He doesn't say, go fatten the calf.
And in a few weeks and a few months, we'll kill it and we'll celebrate and we'll have a party.
He says, Go kill the fattened calf.
What does that tell me in this moment?
That tells me this that the the fattened calf was ready.
Even more it tells me the fattened calf stays ready.
Even more it tells me that I can almost imagine every day that father waking up and walking in the cool of the morning and walking by the pen where that that calf stayed and and and looking at that calf and saying, you know, I love you.
But could it be that today's your last?
Could it be that today is the day my son comes home and we have reason to celebrate?
Get the robe, get the ring, get the shoes, get the fattened calf, let us eat and celebrate.
Why?
Verse 24.
For this my son was dead and is alive again.
He was lost and is found.
And they began to celebrate.
Verse 24 seems odd to me, because it just seems like it's out of order.
As you think about going from the lesser to the greater, I wanted to say he was lost and is found, and even further, he was dead and isn't alive.
That to me sounds like going from the lesser to the greater.
But I do believe Luke got it right because there is something worse than being dead, and that's being lost to the Father.
And there's something better than being alive, and that's being found by the Father.
So we have a child of the Father who is despising the Father, who is then in need of the Father, and where do we end right here?
At home with the Father.
And I just want to ask you a question that I believe through this story, Jesus is asking of the Pharisees in his midst.
And the question is simply this do you understand the grace of Jesus?
And I want to be clear with that question.
I'm I'm I'm asking that question to any non-Christian in the room that today might, for the first time, want to come and embrace the grace of Jesus.
But I want to be clear about something.
I'm asking this question of every Christian in the room.
Do you understand the grace of Jesus?
Or could it be that this morning you need to just take a spiritual sledgehammer to any of the false realities you have built in your head over uh what our Savior is like?
Any preconceived notions of how God might should deal with sinful people, and instead look to Scripture and see how God does deal with sinful uh people.
I I think of uh Luther who who is quoted as saying the the devil would come to him and tell him that he is such a sinner, in fact, he is the chief of sinners.
And Luther said, and that would encourage me greatly.
Why?
Because Christ died for sinners.
That if you're in the room and you are a sinner, the chief of sinners, you've messed up far worse than you ever thought possible.
You have bigger regrets than you ever thought you could walk through.
There are seasons and years and decades of your life that you are ashamed of.
I just want to tell you this morning that you're just in the right place.
Why?
Because the place that you're in is the grace of God.
That God has looked on your sin, and I just want you to hear it.
In the words of Corey Tin Boom, I say it too much, but I'll say it one more time.
Has cast your sins into the sea of forgetfulness.
That if you are here this morning and you are in Christ, what that means is that you are in Christ.
That your hope and eternity is secure because your hope and eternity was never built on you, on what you did or didn't do.
Here was your state in the pig pen, looking across at the pigs, wondering if you could get a meal, and here's what God did for you when you were at your worst.
He ran to you.
For everyone in this room, for every Christian in your room, in this room, do you understand the grace of Jesus?
I'll ask it like this.
Does the grace of Jesus cause you to smile?
Is the grace of Jesus a delight to you?
Do you know and understand that you were dead in your sins and now you are not?
Do you understand that death and hell were yours and now they are not?
Do you understand, not just for you, but everyone you see around you, even the one that seems like the prodigal who is too far gone and and and surely what they they want nothing to do with Jesus, that even him, even her, do you know that no one is past the grace of God?
How do I know that?
Because I wasn't past the grace of God.
Do you delight in the grace of God?
Does it make you smile and make you laugh?
Does it wake you up in the morning and and and you live differently because you know a Savior and His name is Jesus?
Are you pursuing sanctification in your own life?
I hope that you are.
You better be, but not on the foundation of I've got to do this to earn it, but because I've been given all things in Christ Jesus.
I would imagine when the young son came home, we don't know the rest of the story, but we know they have a big party.
I I imagine when the young son came home as a son, I would imagine things probably look different.
What I imagine is this that the father probably didn't have to tell the young son to do this or do that or be this or be that.
We'll see in a couple weeks.
Certainly the older son had a false view of what the father was like, but I imagine the young son knowing where he had been, knowing the smell of the pig pen, and knowing the comfort of the father's home.
I imagine this.
He delighted to do the will of his father, delighted to be with the father.
Here's my question for you.
Christian in the room, I just want to ask, do you delight to be with the father?
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you for your gospel.
Thank you for the truth of your word.
Would we delight to be in your presence?
Would we remind ourselves every day that we have a Father in heaven, we have a Savior named Jesus, that we were dead in sins, but now we are alive, and would that put a smile on our face?
And would it also put a desire for evangelism in our hearts to let others know that this joy is here and it is possible?
Lord, if there's one in this room this morning that doesn't have that hope, would they not leave this church today without knowing the truth for themselves?
That you have left your heavenly porch for them, that you have gone to the cross with their sins, that you have died for their sins to grant them forgiveness of sins, that they can have eternal life in you.
And they can know that beyond any shadow of a doubt, and they can know that today.
Would today be the day, Lord?
And for everyone in this room, would we walk out of here with the encouragement, the hope, the knowledge that, Lord, you are our Father and you love us deeply?
Lord, in these moments would we respond however, however, anyone in this room sees fit, just come down to join this church family, talk about baptism, talk about knowing Jesus, however it is, talk about prayer, whatever it is.
Would it happen in these moments in Christ's name?
Amen.
Would you stand now?
I'll be down front if you'd like to respond in any way.