Lost & Found

Welcome to “After The Amen” 🙏 
The goal of this podcast is to revisit the message from the previous Sunday in order to unpack the passage even further, ask key questions, and discover how faith can practically move from Sunday morning into every day of the week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey there, everybody. Welcome to After the Amen, our podcast segment here at Frankenmouth Bible Church, where we take the content from Sunday morning sermon and we unpack it throughout the week in the middle of the week. So today I'm joined by Pastor Mark once again. What's up? It's good to be here. This time you got to preach, which was awesome. Yes. But uh yeah, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:24

This is the first time kicking off a new series for me. Ever here. Yeah, for sure. I've always jumped in. Well, while the Ecclesiastes had jumped halfway through and carried the latter half of that. This is the first time kicking off a series.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah. No pressure, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

No pressure. Let's get a good start.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Well, uh I got a chance to connect and listen to your sermon. Thought you did an awesome job. Appreciated the message, as always. Um and yeah, so this was a series that we had probably developed maybe even before you were here. It might have already been for sure. In the works in terms of a series that we planned, but you got to kick off the series. So just generically, yeah, the parables of Jesus. Any overarching comments from you about your thoughts on the parables of Jesus?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

And yeah. Um, this series were, you know, designed to look at five of them. There's a there's a bunch of them. Right. Um, so Jesus used parables in his ministry a lot. Um, I think I mentioned in the sermon that parables are short stories, they are like really powerful illustrations. And I think that's why they're so, in a sense, so known. If you know the words of Jesus, people know the parables of Jesus. Right. And because they're just uh short, it's amazing how short they are and how powerful they are. Um like really powerful illustrations, making um a real point to the audience he's speaking to that's just unforgettable. Yeah. And uh so yeah, we we looked at one, we're gonna look at four more, uh, but they are throughout the gospels.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah. Do you have um any favorite parables or any? I mean, that's a that's a spring of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, no, that's that's fine too. Um this one here in Luke 15 is obviously, as I mentioned as well on Sunday, very well known, right? One of the most popular. And um one of the things that comes to mind is um uh Jesus' uh parable, talking to the rich young ruler.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yeah, yeah. It'd be a favorite. This is this is another favorite. This is a good one. I I I I like this one.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, so it's a good one. Yeah. Uh you obviously were talking about lost things, and so your opening illustration was about losing lost things.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Uh one of the things you started off was talking about losing a book. We had a conversation, you went to go look for a book. I remember that conversation. Yeah, you couldn't find it. Yeah. So um, just to update everybody, have you found your book?

SPEAKER_02 2:38

You know, the funny couple funny things about that is the uh the book was on prayer on the topic of prayer, specifically on the Lord's prayer. That we were having the conversation and um I went to the bookshelf to find it, wasn't there, looked in another place, wasn't there, and like, oh man, that book is gone. Um, the annoying part of that. Sure. Um, the convicting thing of that is I never prayed to find the book. So should have just prayed about it again. Uh but on Monday morning, uh, the funniest thing is um after preaching the message, on Monday morning I was coming to my office and I thought, oh, there's one other place I should look for that. And I did, I found my book. So the book is found, the lost book is found.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

The lost and we can rejoice. There's rejoice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

I was happy about that. You know, uh it's been said historically, um I don't know who uh what pastor or what comment you know commentator said this, but uh God can only use those whom he deeply wounds. Yeah. I I think along the lines of pastors have books that they use in their reading and in their study, and uh pastors have books that they deeply wound. And they're marked up, scarred up, they are notes everywhere. So if someone did happen to borrow it and it didn't come back, they're gonna they're gonna know it because it's gonna have my markings all over that.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Well, we've talked about that too. It's one of those things. There are some books that get loaned out more regul more regularly than others. Yeah. So I know, at least in my experience, I've had certain books where I'm like, I think I might have let somebody use that at one point, and I probably bought the same book three to four times just because you're like, you gotta have it on your shelf. But it's also a great resource for people, and you're glad to let people take it because obviously it's a great resource, you know.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

So we we only loan out our best books.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Exactly. That's how works.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

So when they come to the when they come to the shelf, we're like, well, we're not gonna give you the B or the C drawer. We're gonna here's the best book on this topic. And so then they disappear and you end up buying them. Yeah. So well, as uh Some Sometimes I've started encouraging people, like, hey, this is the best book on it. Get yourself a copy. Because you're gonna want your own copy. Absolutely. They're not that expensive.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So that's good. Yeah, you you I feel like you were speaking directly to me because I lose everything. So I think you talked about you know, sometimes you lose your key, like everything you were listing, yep, lost that, lost that, lost that. I have a tendency to lose things. Okay. And so one of the things, even or it's kind of a little bit of a running joke around here, but very regularly people will find like a coffee in the microwave, and they're like, Oh, Joe, your coffee.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Exactly. Okay, so find him now.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

That's my life. Yeah, all right. But anyways, but yeah, and you had talked about um when we lose things, it's disturbing. Is it the word used disturbing? Yeah, it is disturbing, unsettling.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

It is disturbing, and if it remains lost, it's grievous.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Exactly. Yeah, and especially depending on the the significance of what you lose. Yeah, yeah. So I think everybody could resonate with that. So it's a great way to kind of open up the message and frame up, you know, and illustrate what we were talking about. Oh, yeah. So um, but we'll we'll jump into the whole lost elements in just a moment. I have a question before that. You began uh the message by kind of giving some context. Uh you're in Luke 15. It's um the the parable that you unpacked before you jumped into that parable. You talked a little bit about the specific context of what was happening at the time when Jesus began to teach.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

And you talked about the fact that there were notorious sinners who were drawing near to Jesus. And I think you might have said also religious sinners. Yes. Which was a cool way to frame that. That was a great way to say it.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Well, as you read through the parable, both of them are alienated from God.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Both the renowned sinners and the the righteous ones, the religious ones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

And I'm sure we'll uh press into that in a little bit. But the significance of uh us understanding, you know, that that kind of tension of the two these two groups of people who are around Jesus. I mean, anything you want to unpack further there?

SPEAKER_02 6:09

I think that's interesting because there are some parables, like we mentioned earlier, you know, if Jesus is speaking to the rich young ruler, um the parable specific to him and it's a single audience, and he's driving to a singular point. Uh in this context, it it it Jesus has two audiences. And so he it's fascinating how he can tell such a short story that would significantly land on both audiences, right? With with significant impact. Both of them are going to learn things from this parable, and uh, which I think is really cool. So I think noticing that um that context I think is important as you get into the get into the story.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah. Yeah. Next week my parable in particular is to a singular it's you know, it's given to an individual, which is unique, obviously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

And this has literally two audiences.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

And uh of course it it mentions the tax collectors and sinners. That doesn't fall on us. We don't put tax collectors in any well, we don't have tax collectors like they did then, so that doesn't really fall on us. Um and we don't put them in a particular category. But in that day, um, you know, these are just renowned bad people. Yeah. Everyone knew that.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Um so yeah, we don't even probably have an uh way to apply it in the same country.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

If you go into a local high school or you even go into a local, you know, manufacturing facility, uh, within a day, you you kind of know who the good people are and who the bad people are.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Just by their uh their posture, their attitude, their actions, you just kind of just can decipher them, like, oh hey, that's a rough group right there.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

And so literally, this is a rough group. This these are renowned sinners, these are renowned bad reputation people. Everyone knows it. Societally, they're like, Yeah, this is a bad group. And they're drawing near to hear Jesus, and then you have the other the other side. I I I reference them like this is the local synagogue staff, right? Trying to make some connection, like, you know, these are these are religious leaders. Yeah, and uh so that's this is the audience that Jesus is gonna speak to, and speaks to both of them very effectively.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah. Well, we'll we'll I have more questions about that. We'll press into you. Yeah. One more kind of approach question. Oh, yeah. So you in your chapter, Jesus begins to to speak in parables, or uh share a parable, a parable, yeah, and he talks about uh the lost sheep, the lost coin, then the lost son.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yep. Which obviously pause there for just a second. Yes, go ahead. Yes, you just made the correction.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

He he it's the lost sheep, lost coin, lost sons plural. Yeah. And that's where we get tripped up because in our Bible it has a little heading, the per uh the parable of the prodigal son. Yeah. And there's actually two prodigal sons. Anyways, that's a whole other thing. No, that's exactly what I was gonna press into in a minute.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Well, for now though, yeah. So often people will take those stories, uh Absolutely, illustrations within the story. Illustrations within the story, and they will parse them out into three sections. Sure. Often they'll say, Hey, Jesus is telling three parables here. Yeah. You would distance yourself from that perspective, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Maybe yeah, a little bit. You can preach these obviously independently. Sure. And and we have, and I have. I mean, they write songs about songs about you know the lost sheep that you know, Jesus leaving the 99 to come find. And and so you can do that, but I think we lose something when we don't realize that these are illustrations within a story. Yeah, these are multiple illustrations, yeah, very much so. Linked textually, very clearly. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So anything, I mean, uh anything you want to unpack about the significance of why it's helpful for us to to not not necessarily have to disconnect them.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Oh yeah. Well, uh again, if you just look if you just look at the text and begin to read the chapter, and I I think we read it Sunday on purpose, just to read the whole parable, right, so that it's seen together. But if you get to verse uh three, you know, again, Jesus addresses the fact that there's uh tax collectors there, sinners there, and and um, and also religious people, and it says, so he he told them this parable. Yeah. And so the text tells us like this is a story, yeah. And then within the text, everyone it goes, it it references lost and found, lost and found, lost and found, all the way to the end. So all the way to the very end of the parable. And so that that's a connection there. Um the other thing I I have a practice just about every day I read from a Bible, it's unique. It's uh you may I've I'm sure you've seen it. It's a five-volume set. So it's one Bible and five volumes. It's on regular weighted paper, regular font size, so it's not onion skin paper and really small font. And so that's why it's five volumes instead of one book. And so it's you know, the Pentateuch, history, poetry, and wisdom, literature, prophecy, the gospels and acts, and then the New Testament epistles. Okay. So those are the five volumes. Yep. That Bible, I'll call it Bible, even though it's five books, um, has no chapters, no verses. Oh, yeah. It's just text. I read from that daily, and I have now for quite a while. Yeah. It's it'll profoundly change how you read your Bible. Absolutely. It it it's amazing how much chapter numbers and verse numbers really mess us up as we read our Bibles. And uh, and so I read from that Bible uh just about every day.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

It is fascinating because you get in a lot of the Bible is narrative. And so when you pick it up and it's written like a book, like a not like we normally read, like this Bible here in front of me right now, it's you know, dual column, chapters, verses. There's no other book. You don't go to the library and find a book like this. No. And so the way it's formatted literally changes how you read it. So when I read a reader's Bible, no chapters, no verses, and I'm reading through narrative, yeah, you get pulled into the story. And you're not looking ahead like, oh, I'll read to the end of the next chapter. You just get pulled in the story and you kind of read to that story ends. That makes sense. Yeah. Well, same thing with this, you know, parable. When you read it without chapters and verses, that's where you really begin to see, like, oh yeah, this is this is the story. That's great. And so sometimes the chapters, verse numbers, and these little headings, which are designed for a purpose. Because I can say from the pulpit, turn out, take out your Bibles and turn to Luke 15, and we can f we can all find the same place.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

So this is valuable. I don't want to discredit it.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

But it does, it does change our reading. And then and then in Luke 15, we actually have the three headings, yeah, which we've separated out of it. Compartmentalize it. Yeah, we compartmentalize it. It's a good way of saying that.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

It's interesting because um I don't have that as a regular practice, although that's a really great, great thought. Um but when I preach, I will often Oh, you print it out and put it on a piece of paper? I will often take it out, take uh because you can just go to Bible Gateway, for example, you can take a text and you can get rid of the verses. Yeah. The verse references uh and notes and all that, and chapter divisions, you can you can get rid of those things. I will often take that and put it on a blank sheet of paper when I'm prepping to preach. Oh yeah. And I'll I'll take kind of the sweeping text, whatever it is. It may it may be a chapter division within a chapter, but sometimes it's broader than that. You know, even Ecclesiastes is an example of I think the first week I preached, second week I preached. Oh, you you you expand a chapter in the middle. I didn't limit myself to a chapter. Yeah, yeah. Because the clearly the text went beyond that. Yeah. Anyways, the point is I'll often take that when I'm beginning to study and prep through a passage so that way I'm not constrained by those natural divisions, and I can draw up the divisions and how I want to preach a little differently, but it just it's just a helpful practice for me reading through a text. That's brilliant, though. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

It's super helpful. When you read through like Old Testament has a lot of narrative, right? And again, if the chapter divisions aren't there and the headings aren't there and the verse numbers aren't there, you get, like I said, you get pulled into the story and you just start reading the story, and you're not really looking for any type of division. You're just kind of the story itself has its own divisions, and that's really new neat. Uh, also when you get into the New Testament and you sit down with a New Testament epistle, a letter, whether it's Romans or First Timothy or James, and you remove the chapters out of there as well and the numbers, there they're a lot of them like, you know, James is just a short letter. First and second Timothy are short letters, and so you can actually sit down and read them like the recipient would have read it. You know, when Timothy got that letter from Paul, he's not like, well, I'll read chapter one today. He just he's gonna sit down and read that letter and probably read it multiple times. And so to read like that is really profound. So you you asked about this parable. There's a couple of things that really cued me in. One was Jesus told them this parable, so I knew it was one parable, not three. Right. Text-wise, all three of them are lost, found, lost, found, lost, found, or all we should say, even all four.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

The yeah. Um the text did that as that.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, lost found, lost found, lost found, lost. Yeah. Yeah. Which is significant. Right, exactly. So you're making two things, just comments to go on what you said.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah, we're not even in the text. This is like preparation for the text.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Well, it reminds me there are times, and you probably encounter this too, where we don't have the ability to do to do this, but there are times where I I might be reading scripture and I'm like, man, if I if I got to pick where the chapter was, I don't know if I would have picked where the chapter ended here. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

I even think of uh There's some study Bibles that do that well.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

To be like, there is, you know, this is a chapter vision here, probably should be at verse four.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Even even in the beginning of Genesis, what do they don't they uh the seventh day is disconnected, I think, in the textual break. Right. Just unique stuff like that. Yes. Anyways.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

So we don't mind chapter numbers and verses because we can find it.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Helpful for reference. Yes, for sure. But not always helpful and not always as helpful for study. Sometimes it can be limiting. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Other quick comment you mentioned about reading like letters. I have a vivid memory. It just you know fired off my brain thinking about it. I was probably 15 or 16. That was a unique season of my life because I don't think I probably had much of a regular habit at that age of reading my Bible or even having a context for scripture. I had an uncle who he wanted to do a Bible study with me and some cousins. He was he was in town. And he had sent us a message, like, hey, I want to do a little Bible study. Well, between now, yep, between now and you know, two weeks from when I'm in there. Well, I just want to talk about the book of Acts. So if you guys can just read the book of Acts between now and when I get there. Yeah. Well, I procrastinated. Oh, those I forgot, kind of whatever. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Night before you're probably the day before.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yes. And I had or maybe maybe even the day of. Yeah. So I read the book of Acts because I didn't want to be the one in one setting. Yeah. And I was maybe 16. Yeah. And I remember I I admitted that. And my uncle was like, that's great. Do you know that was a letter to a guy named Theophilus? You read it like a letter. You read it, right? I mean it was the second part, second letter, you know. Um, obviously Luke was the first one. Luke was connected to it. Yeah. But and it was interesting because it was my first experience, and I've done that. Yep. You know, later on in life where you can like, I'm just gonna read this in one setting. It's pretty cool when you take a book like that and you you read it that way. And we have a tendency, I think, even sometimes in the church, and this is not a crit I'm I would never be critical of guys like Lloyd Jones, for example. Yeah, but how many years he spent in Romans?

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Right? And you're like parsing every word. You're just gonna take one verse at a time, and there's value in that. Yep. We have a series where we're gonna talk about that a little bit. But Romans was also a letter.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

So there's just value for the reader, for the listener when you're in scripture. There are there are times where just in-depth study, picking apart things is healthy.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

But you also should take it as it was written.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

Yeah, you know, read it that way too. Your sermon uh schedule was well designed for the year before I arrived, which is great. Sure. I appreciate doing that. It also enables us to pivot if we need to, which we've even done, adjusting the calendar this year. But I I just know later in the year on the schedule, we're gonna go through the book of First Thessalonians, which is a short book. It's five chapters. It was a letter. So literally, as we kick off that series, we should be encouraging one another to like sit down, read the whole thing. Read the letter. If you read the whole thing, it's just incredibly impactful, as you're seeing. You're you're exactly right. That's how they read it. When it went to that church, they read the whole letter.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Publicly read it in front of the whole congregation.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah, they would not have been like, well, we're gonna cover verses one through three this Sunday. Exactly. Um, and again, we're not opposed to that, but as we start that series, it would be valuable. I think we did that in Ecclesiastes, like just read through the whole book, read it once a week. So if we go through 12 weeks, you read through it 12 times and then focusing on the chapter. That's just really valuable practice.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yep. And again, our perspective is that all scriptures God breathed. This is you know, the Holy Spirit, this is this is God is the author of scripture. We have human writers who who communicated, and there's we can get all that, but the so there's value, I do think, in digging in. But again, I think m I think today many people maybe are used to small Yeah. Small volume.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

The danger in that is coming to my mind is we can begin pursuing our Bible like a self-help book. We now are approaching the text looking for a particular encouragement or counsel or help.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Well or even to the extreme end, we we jump in to one verse looking for some sort of answer. Oh, yeah. And we we may derive that answer from our own misunderstanding if we're not reading it contextually.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

You know, we want to take it as it is and I I with Luke 15 to press back into this parable, yeah. Um we've digressed. Well, I just noticed that it's one from the text, notice that they're combined by way of the uh the language used. And certainly I have preached a message on the lost sheep. Yep. And I have preached a message on the prodigal son, yes, as we understand those. And I think you can do that, and there's value to that. There's there's things that are taught about God and his nature and character and about Jesus and about ourselves and about the salvation that God has provided us. So there's value in that. But I think um, and I think that's so common, quite frankly, that for me to take the entire chapter and say this is one parable, you really begin to realize that there's more here.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

And um valuable, important stuff here that weirdly gets left off. And um, and quite frankly, when I think about it, and we'll get we'll get into this maybe a little further in our conversation. Where this parable lands is probably more impactful for people who are growing up in church. Yes. And we miss that to our own church audience. We emphasize the unconditional love of the father toward rebel rebels. Yep. Which is a great message. Wonderful. So, yep. And it needs to be included. But that's part of the audience, that's part of the audience he's speaking to, but the part of the audience that's most common in our culture and in our context, we've totally eclipsed that. The older brother. Yeah. And so, and we need not to. That's great. So we'll get into that in our conversation undoubtedly. So let's jump in right now on some of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

So what I would say one of the biggest takeaways or kind of the overarching, if you look at just let's lean into the last component of that parable, the last story, the the brother part of the story, which obviously was was kind of central in the message in terms of what you landed on, but you hit the first two examples of the lost uh sheep, the lost coin. But when it comes to the brothers, you talked about the fact that you have you have two lost individuals here. You have the young younger brother who's lost and then found, and then you have the older brother who just stays lost in the pair of it. Maybe just take a little bit to unpack the significance of of Jesus ending the story in that way. It almost feels just unresolved. You're kind of like waiting like for sure for what's gonna happen next.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

It does not continue the it does not continue the story. Yes. And that's part of Jesus' master story. Brilliant. He leaves it open there, which leaves it unsettled, which is to leave the religious leaders in his audience, in his proximity. It's to leave them unsettled.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

And that is such a powerful.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

I think if even I wasn't We like to wrap things up in our messages. And he just leaves it out there. Like this is unfinished.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

That's one of the reasons I love the book of Jonah. Because at the end of the book of Jonah, you're like, what happens?

SPEAKER_01 22:22

You're like, what's the ending?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

You know, it's like God's kind of like, can't shouldn't I show mercy? Do I want to show mercy too? And you just you're like, you're waiting.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

And it's unsettling.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

But the same way with this. So maybe yeah, just take some time to unpack that.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Here you have two sons in the story. They're to cross the bridge, they're both alienated from the father. Right. One looks alienated from the father. Right. One looks like, I don't care for you. So just give me the stuff that's coming to me and I'll exit now. Yeah. And that looks horrible. And if it happened in our context, if it happened, if we saw that happening, we'd be like, that's a rebellious, unworthy son. That's he's acting horribly. And but he's alienated from the father, comes to his senses, realizes the goodness of the father when he comes to the end of himself and returns home and receives that welcome and embrace. The other son who does not appear to be alienated from the father.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

He doesn't care for the father. He just wants the father stuff. We know that because when the father rejoices, he's not rejoicing. When the father's celebrating, he's not celebrating. His heart posture, heart attitude, his life has been compliance and obedience. So he doesn't look alienated. Right. But he really is. Right. And this is the this is what brings that out in his life. Like here's a you know a rebellious brother comes home and and the father's rejoicing and he's he's angry. He's agitated. And yeah, yeah. And and the and the father's going out to him and entreating him to come in and welcoming him in, and and um, which it which is also awesome. It tells us about the father as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

But in the story, we don't pick up on the fact that both sons are alienated from the father.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Yeah. Man, there's so much to talk about with that.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

There is. Um and I think you have more to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Well, and my questions kind of all press into the same thing, so I might just freely talk about it. So a couple things about that. So um one of the things you you touched on, both of them are lost. Both of them want the father's things. Yeah. One hastens that process through his own self-will. Self-will, rebelliousness.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Give me what I want right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

But the older brother also is very interested in the father's father's things.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

And he approaches that through his rule keeping, so to speak. Yeah. Um yeah, that's interesting. I I I think Keller was one of the first guys, he's got a book. He does a good job with this parable. Yeah. Um, for those who haven't uh prodigal God is the title of the book. But one of the things I think he drew out for this is a you know, I would have read that many years ago, so I probably had not as much of a familiarity with the parable before then. But when Keller uh talks about one of the things that agitates the young the older brother is that the inheritance, the portion of the younger son's inheritance has already been squandered. So everything else the father has belongs to the older brother. Yeah. So when the father throws the party and kills the fat and calf, you're tapping into my stuff.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

He's tapping into my stuff. That's why he's in the state and he's ticked.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yes. Yeah. So it just reveals, you know, they they both.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Um we just often don't have a category for an obedient son who's also rebellious. Absolutely. That's why it says the parable of the prodigal son, because we have categories for the son who leaves. Yeah. We often don't have categories for the obedient, compliant, yes, there all the time, religious, righteous, self-righteous. Self-righteous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

And so there's a there's a part of this where it just seems funny where both these sons need to repent. Right. And it doesn't look like one needs to repent. But the one needs to repent of his bad activity, the other son needs to repent of his good works. Absolutely. Because it's his good works that he's relying on, leaning on justifying himself. He's justifying himself through his own self-reach. Self-righteous, justifying himself.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

But the heart behind his good deeds. Right, it's it's not out of love and devotion to the father that you mentioned. It's out of uh self-seeking, self-serving.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah, and it's gonna come out when today. So how do you how you diagnose that? You know, you can because you can't see it. Right. Because outwardly this person looks obedient, compliant, reliant, you know, all of that. This is a good guy. But it comes out in life when all of a sudden I'm not getting from God, I'm not getting from the Father what I expected. And quite frankly, I should deserve more because of how I've been living, how I've been acting. So it shows up in that context when all of a sudden we're we're disappointed with the father.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

And and so it's um, and God has an ability in the course of the life of his of people to show that. Yeah, but it's not gonna be revealed on the daily, it's gonna show up at points like this. We're like, I don't agree with what the father's doing here. Yeah, he's he's being kind to people I wouldn't be kind to. Exactly. He's being good to people that I wouldn't be good to. And matter of fact, it's maybe some of my resources that are being wasted on on that audience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Well, and I think that that's the part of it, if we're honest, when we listen to the parable, it's really easy for us, and you framed it up really well, because you I I that's why I appreciate the way that you started off by talking about rebellious sinners and then the religious sinners. Oh, it's just a really helpful because you set the tone early. Like, hey, we're we're not talking about two two groups of people here. We're not talking about sinners and non-sinners or genuinely righteous people. We're talking about yeah, religious sinners. But thinking through that, we there even could be the propensity to say, you know, boy, those Pharisees, look at them, those hard-hearted people who, you know, and obviously those were the immediate audience.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

But if I put myself in the shoe of that older brother, that's a that's a tough pill to swallow when you've you know done the right things, so to speak. Yep. And look at how it's turning out now. Yeah. You know, um, yeah, it's just helpful for me.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Well it's making me think through even other parables where you have the laborers who go out in the field. That's one of my favorites. Oh, okay. Yeah, the laborers who go out in the field, and people get, you know, they go out at 6 a.m. and all throughout the day, yeah, the the the owner is is hiring more laborers, and it gets, you know, there's only it's 5 p.m. and he's still hiring laborers, and then he pays them all the same. And the people who contracted with the laborer at the beginning of the day are upset. And he's like, Don't I have the right to do with exactly so which again goes back to Jonah a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

But uh what yeah, and that's a that's a fun parable to to talk about when you have five kids too, because people who are really concerned with fairness struggle with that. Yeah, you know, uh boy.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

But when you relate to God, as we are great, I'm grateful, we are grateful that God doesn't act on fairness alone, or we'd all get what we deserve and we'd all be lost. We'd all remain lost. He wouldn't even come searching. So if we got if God's just gonna be fair. So when we see the grace of the Father, the grace of God being extended to the worst of sinners and to the religious sinners, we should be we should marvel at that. And then when religious sinners come to the realization that they're also alienated and need to repent like the other, that's immeasurable grace as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Because it we we contrast, I think there's still that sneaking suspicion that we think, well, people who trusted in Jesus are are right with the Father, and so are good people. I think there's that sneaking the there's I think it's even in, you know, we talked about this earlier. There's only one way to come to the Father. Yeah. And it's the way that He's made available, which is grace to us, and it's through Jesus Christ. But there's multiple ways to be lost, and we we we easily recognize the people who are really lost from our perspective, right? And we just somehow have the religious good people in a different category. And I think the part of that parable is pointing out they're in the same category. Right. If you can see their heart, which ultimately is it is revealed in their activity, right? Not in the immediate, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

And interestingly, and you you brought this out, which is great. Um, you have the younger brother who it's so apparent, his lostness. Obviously, it's it's obviously on the surface, yeah. And even just, you know, his his all his asking the father to give him his inheritance now, which was something that is supposed to be dispensed at the death of the father. So you're kind of like, hey, dad, I hope you're dead. Yeah, give me my stuff, goes off and squanders it. Like we we see the father, and this is powerful. I think this is why people gravitate to the to the parable, pursue the son. You know, the son is uh from a long way away, he realizes the benevolence of his father who who who the hired servants, you know, he this the rebellious son comes to the end of himself, the end of his ropes, and he remembers and knows about the the kindness of the father, the goodness of the father.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

He hopes he knows he brings him to repentance.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yeah, he's like, I don't know if I'll be a son, but if even I can be a high one of the hired men, I just you know, right. So he begins to go back to the father, but the father pursues the son because the father goes and runs after the son. Yeah. We we see that, but you also talked about how the father, that's not the only one the father pursues. He also goes out to the other brother. Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

I didn't bring this up on Sunday, but I, you know, we have we read through the gospels and um the religious leaders are constantly against Jesus. Ultimately, they're the ones who would have him condemned and crucified. They're the ones who bring the bring him to Pilate to be like, this guy is a this guy's a rebel. You know, he's a he's rebelling against the Roman government. He needs to be, he needs to be crucified. So we see the religious leaders as adversarial, and clearly they were. But Jesus loves them. Absolutely. I think that's another part. We didn't really bring that up much in the in the sermon on Sunday. While the religious leaders are adversarial to Jesus, Jesus is not their adversary. He's literally come to seek and to save them, he loves them. So he tells them parables like this, and he does a variety of things in the context of the religious leaders because he genuinely loves them. Exactly. He goes out to them, he's telling them this parable, he's leaving it wide open. He he really is seeking lost people, and it doesn't matter who they are that's lost. And uh so I I think that also is impactful along the lines of um those of us who grew up in really moral context, really church moral, we're good people. The father loves us and and desires us to save us from ourselves, right? To save us from our own inadequate self-righteousness. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

So that's a great yeah, and I think you when you look through the the gospels. Well, first of all, it's helpful to understand that context because we have the story of Jesus takes place in a time and a place and a culture that's distinct from our own. So you have this these religious individuals who are also part of the established leadership in Israel. So they have influence and power, and obviously they're the ones who who are the ones that are seeking the death of Jesus. But but when you read through the the gospels, you see you see Jesus um connecting with both and seeking Zacchaeus would be a classic example of the notorious sinner who Jesus eats with, you know, welcomes in, uh he goes into his home, you know, and he has fellowship with and he he pursues him.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

And but then you even have the Nicodemus examples. You have you have both the religious and the irreligious.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

If you if you read through the Gospels and uh read through the Gospels, not paying attention to chapter divisions and verses, yeah. But if you read through the Gospels, um I well, there's one author who said, you know, Jesus literally ate his way through the gospels. The in the amount of times that Jesus was at meals is remarkable, especially in Luke. And the amount of times that he is at meals with the religious audience is also remarkable. So he's not just eating with sinners, he's also hanging out with a religious audience, and they're also inviting him in too, whether they're showing him good courtesy or not. So clearly they're intrigued. They they they can't deny nor ignore him. Right. Um, the other interesting thing you mentioned, like Jonah, the story ends and it's just unfinished. This parable ends and it's unfinished. Um the book of Acts, as it picks up the story of the ministry of Jesus continuing on by the Holy Spirit in the life of the apostles, it talks about the number of religious leaders who are coming to the faith.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Which is fascinating. And so we get a little glimpses of that. Like you mentioned, Nicodemus is one of them. You know, he comes to see Jesus in John 3. At the end, he's the one who's involved in the burial of Jesus. And so we see, and he's also the one like cautioning the religious leaders, like, we need to think this through. Um, clearly, one who came to faith, but he's not the only one. We get into Acts and we start hearing, like, oh, there were numerous religious leaders who came to faith. And I think again, Jesus, in a sense, is laying that groundwork for three years, and then the Holy Spirit picks that up through the apostles when we see them come to faith.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

And what's interesting when you think through that too, and I'm I don't want to press too far because I'm gonna be talking about this a little bit in my parable this coming week. But the other thing too is I think it can be confusing. You almost see you can get the false notion, and you touched on this, that Jesus was against the religious leaders.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Mutually adversarial adversarial part wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Part of it has to do with the lostness. There are two different avenues that he tends to pursue those who are lost. For the irreligious, there's an awareness that they've been well generally, there's more of an awareness like, hey, I'm I'm going my own way, yeah, doing things my own way. Um I'm opposed to the path that God has prescribed for us. And so there's a almost a clear like, hey, no, I'm I'm for you, I'm willing to engage with you. The fact that Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors is a scandalous thing because he's associating himself with the kinds of people that nobody else would would want to be seen with. Yep. So his his tenderness and love is a means by which he's able to bring them to a place of understanding that there's a God who loves them, who wants, who pursues them. Oh, yeah. The religious he he has to bring them to a place at times of their awareness of their lostness. Oh, for sure. So it's just it's just the the reality of these two different groups of people. The end result or the goal is to pursue them and love them, but oftentimes the religious need to see that despite their attempts at rule keeping and self-righteousness, they're still sinners.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

And so it's the the law tends to be one of those things that he brings them to, and it's it can be a little more harsh or condemning because they need to see that. Yeah. So I'll I'll go be going into that my parable a little bit myself on this coming week. But yeah, I think that might be why we we we don't.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yeah. You know what we call the renowned sinners, they are flagrantly going their own way. Correct. I don't want any of this. Right. I'll go my own way, I'll chart my own course. The religious are doing the same thing within the confines of well, to tie this to the prior sermon series. They were praying, they were fasting, they were giving, and they're doing it to be seen. Right. But they're they're keeping the rules, going their own way, keeping the rules, because there's a sense of like if I do these things, I can put God in my debt. Exactly. He owes me. Yep. Which is just completely upside down. Um so they remain their own God within the context of the religious rules, because now I can manipulate God, He owes me, He He must, you know, I'm gonna try in a weird pagan way. I'm gonna, by my rule keeping, I'm gonna manipulate him to get what I really want, which isn't him, right? It's his possession, his stuff.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah, and I we we all need to come to a place where we recognize the need of a savior. And I think when we when we are keeping the law, keeping the rules in a way that we think that we're gonna merit something before God, we don't have a we we are our own. We you know, we become we uh uh we cre create an idol of ourselves. Sure. And so yeah, I think that for Jesus it's like, hey, you need you need to understand your desperate need, right? Your your condition before holy God, whether you're whether you're you know clearly sinning, yeah, or or it's not so something that's in your purview, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah, you know, there used to be an old radio program, it's probably still being aired today, unshackled. Unshackled was a half an hour radio program on a Christian radio where they would always um relay a testimony of someone who just had a horrible life, yeah, who who made a lot of decisions that put them in a really bad, really bad place, and of course they come to faith in Jesus. There's no unshackled stories about the kid who grows up in church and you know graduates from Iwana, goes to Christian college, and then later in life realizes like I'm still my self-savior here. Sure. I'm I'm doing all of this. And uh for them to realize their lost condition and the the extravagance of God's grace, this is in the in the parable, the lost on the south side, there's grace available to him. That is the same party, same reception, same uh, same possessions, but he's he's outside of that. So for a for a moral, religious person to come to the realization that I'm I'm lost is is a profound profound work of the Holy Spirit. And what no different than the than the rebellious one.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Yep, yeah. Whether it's unrighteousness or self-righteousness, you need repentance either way. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Yeah, yeah. I I I once worked in a context um uh in a secular work environment, and uh there was a guy that I worked with who um well, he's a Roman Catholic priest, and uh which is just a fascinating story. He had a very fascinating testimony. There was a girl that I grew up with in the youth group who also ultimately led him to faith in Jesus Christ. Wow. It was a fantastic story, and uh he just realized um the magnificence of God's grace to him and that um he was not being saved by his religiosity and his moral living, but he was saved by Christ alone. A huge story, it was fantastic. That's incredible. But though those stories often don't get told, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:29

No, no, we but we yeah, I I was thinking of some uh my my dad made a made a joke once. I heard him share his testimony somewhere. He's like, Well, I I'd like to say that I was a drug addict who was doing these things, but unfortunately it's a joke. But but he's just drawing attention to the fact that that's that's what we tend to do in this culture is it's like those are the real amazing stories. Yeah, and it's like, man, no. Every every person who comes to Christ is a miraculous, incredible thing, whether you know, whether you went down that road or not.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Um so the realization I'm not saving myself. Exactly. Yeah, I need a savior, and God has provided one. Yeah. Incredible grace.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

Uh you said to me yesterday something to this effect, I may have misquoted you, but you can either be lost or found, but there's more than one way to be lost. And I think that's maybe capturing some of what we're saying here.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Absolutely. There's just the two categories there's lost and found. Yeah. But there's multiple ways to be lost. Yeah. And this this brings that out.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

We've been highlighting that. We have been highlighting that as right. Yeah. Um again, we've meandered through my questions, so I don't I don't know if I've we have many more questions on the sheet of paper here, but we've we've covered quite a bit. Um major takeaways from from this last week as you kind of think through, hey, from a preacher's perspective, what do I really hope that people take home from this or or grab onto from this message?

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah, we've spent a lot of time here talking about the loss being found, whether it's the lost sheep, lost coin, lost sons, uh, plural. Um the other thing that these parables do is they do take us into the nature and character of God. So that would be no matter of what audience, that's that's a big takeaway. Um, God is over the top in his grace to sinners, no matter no matter how the sinning is happening. And and so to take away some of the uh nature and character of God, obviously you have the uh the runaway son who made a uh hash of his life, destroyed his life, spent all his father's possessions, coming home and and not being treated as a servant, you know, not being left at the gate, and the father, like, yeah, you are horrible. I'll think about what I'm gonna do. You know what I mean? He's like the father is like wide open, welcome, embrace, and rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Um, that is a story we're very familiar with, and we need to realize that. And the same thing is available to the The religious one.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

So some of those takeaways, you know, if you want to talk about a big takeaway, um some of what this parable teaches us about the nature and character of God, uh, how his goodness leads people to repentance, uh, how the Father pursues those who are not repentant, that is such grace to us, such kindness to us. Um when you think about God pursuing the kid who grew up in church and and checked all the moral boxes and living a good life, and God's pursuing them. Yeah. And will ultimately, in ways in which he can reveal to them their heart and um and give them opportunity to repent is just remarkable, Grace. So I I guess if you're you're if you're looking for a big takeaway, uh, I would, you know, throw the lenses back on and reread the story and just look for um the actions of the father and the nature that he engages in of welcoming sinners home.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good reminder to us. Um, I was thinking about I don't know recently just thinking about well, maybe it was even the book. We've been reading a book as a staff team. It's been a healthy reminder, I think. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was uh the in that book he talked a little bit about, you know, Jesus. I don't know if he quoted this, but Jesus being the image of the invisible God. Jesus, you know, is um it to know Jesus is to know the Father. We sometimes have a tendency to put Jesus in a category of being the benevolent, loving member of the Godhead, and God the Father is the little more you know stern, angry, and it's like, no, Jesus reveals, shows us who the Father is. We have uh a Father who yeah, who pursues and loves you know us and and yeah, who the the heart the heart of the father is seen in the son.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Yeah, well, it it's interesting in the prior parables before we get into the sons, the two sons that are lost, and one's found and one remains lost. The the two parables before that are the lost sheep and the lost coin. And we referenced on Sunday that you get to the end of those illustrations within the parable, and he talks about repentance and the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. And again, we're like, well, sheep don't repent and coins don't repent. So he's he's leading us somewhere early in the parable, right? Which is also, again, Jesus is masterful at this. So we're getting into the story, and he's already starting to point us to the end. And um, and the fact that it says twice over that all heaven rejoices when sinners repent, and and then it says there's rejoicing before the angels. Well, so the first time it says that, we're like, okay, the angels are rejoicing when sinners repent.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

And you think, okay, this is fascinating because angels didn't this is a longer story, but they clearly didn't have an opportunity to repent. So they watched the church to learn the magnifold wisdom and grace of God. Right. And so when a sinner repents, angels are rejoicing. Right. But then it goes, then there's rejoicing before the angels, and you're like, well, that must mean God is rejoicing. And then it plays out in the story. This this the prodigal comes home, and what's God doing? Throws a party, He's celebrating. Yeah, so the fact that God rejoices over us, yeah, celebrates our coming home.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

And the invitation for the party extends to the older brother, too. Oh, yeah. Which is which is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

That's that's that's another thing that could land on all of us. This is the way is open for everyone. Exactly. That's the good news as well.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

Yep. And and the sinners who repent, as you mentioned, are both the irreligious and the you know the religious, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

So we have a heavenly, heavenly father ready to receive with he's done everything possible so that he could receive us. Yeah. So awesome stuff.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Well, I think that that's it for our questions, Mark. Great, great message, great way to kick off the series. Appreciate that. We're gonna be moving into some other familiar parables and we look forward to the series. So I'm excited about doing that as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Uh anything else that you want to No, I I encourage the people on Sunday as I was closing to go ahead and read um, you know, Luke 10, because that's where you're gonna be this week and read that parable. It's just valuable to read ahead of time. Um, and maybe looking at Luke 15 the way we did, uh, we'll give them a little more like, hey, let's make sure we're not missing something here with this room. So I'm looking forward to that the time Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

And so we'll have uh our services as we've had the next couple weeks. We still have those services simulcast at 10 a.m. Uh at the Grove, which we've looked to enhance that experience a little bit for people. So uh if you were with us maybe before in April, uh the experience in May, yeah, is a is a little bit of um improvement in the experience. The 10th and the 17th. So we we hope you make make plans to join us for that. But yeah, again, thanks for tuning in to After the Amen, and we hope to catch you next week.