| |
January 19, 2003 | Pastor Brian Shimer
|
"Birth and Impossible Turnarounds"
(God is the God of the impossible)
Luke 15
I. I've noticed something: God is the God of the impossible. Every time I think something just cannot happen, God brings it about. When I believe
A person just is not going to turn around, she does! When I think I have come to a dead end, God surprises me with a thoroughfare! This week I got an impossible bill, and just laughed! I mean it was so far out there I thought: "Well, God, this is all yours!" And it is! Our God loves to bring new life forth when we have only encountered death! He loves to do the impossible.
II. God was thrilled when my friend Dave turned a corner in his life.
Raised by his pastor dad, Dave heard the gospel on Sunday but was beat up the rest of the week. "My dad used me as a football" he says. His dad had a temper. And Christ was not allowed into that part of his dad's heart.
By the time Dave reached college, he believed God cared about the same about him as had his dad. But after three days on campus, the campus pastor said, "Hey, did you know Jesus loves you, Dave?"
Actually, he had never thought about such a concept. The question shocked Dave and started him thinking. It was an impossible turnaround to go from believing God did not care and was way in outer space, to believing God was personal and cared individually for Dave.
Dave says he was ripe fruit for the picking. He was an easy convert. He accepted this love, as impossible as it seemed. And his life changed. As a three month old Christian, he went home for Christmas break determined to do one thing, tell his dad he forgave him. The idea had come from the school's secular counselor - who after hearing Dave's story, said, he thought Dave would do well to write a letter to his dad detailing everything done to him, and offering forgiveness. Dave took it a step better.
That break Dave told his dad he forgave him for everything he'd ever done to him. And to his surprise, his dad didn't clobber him. But thanked him.
Why did God thrill at this turnaround in Dave's life? For God is not just God, but Dave's heavenly Father. Dave needed a real Dad, and God is just that, a father to the fatherless. A Good Father. The best.
III. Jesus knew this. Jesus spoke of God as Father on a level unknown in the Old Testament. There was an intimacy in Jesus' language about God that really was shocking to the ear of that era. The character of God was on display in Jesus and what Jesus showed was a Heavenly Father who brought forth victories to His children.
Jesus offered a great picture of this heavenly character in the three parables of Luke 15.
The setting for his parables is a time of ministry: the sinners and tax collectors -- the rabble of society-- were flocking to Jesus, gathering around him, to hear him. And this aroused the criticism of the Pharisees and the Scribes. Rather than gathering, they were muttering, murmuring, or in the most complete sense, they were "complaining throughout the crowd" about Jesus: "He welcomes sinners and eats with them." This was their accusation.
Why? The Pharisee called such sinners "the people of the land." These were those of whom they wrote: "When a man is one of the people of the land entrust no money to him, take no testimony from him, trust him with no secret, do not appoint him guardian of an orphan, do not make him the custodian of charitable funds, do not accompany him on a journey" (barclay, p 206, luke)
Jesus' actions were then in direct conflict with this level of belief. In addition, His parables, depicted something that they did not comprehend. The strict Jew said, not, "There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents," but, "there is joy in heaven over one sinner who is obliterated before God." They looked sadistically forward not to the saving but to the destruction of the sinner. (Barclay, p 207, Luke).
By parable, then, Jesus is speaking into the lives of all his hearers, giving them a glimpse of the truth about the God they serve and the character of the heavenly kingdom.
IV. In the first two parables, what do we learn of God?
A. That he is searching for those who are lost, as a shepherd would for a sheep or a woman for a lost coin.
I can hear that great 3 word phrase: "How much more…"
If we scour and fuss over the loss of something as a member of a flock, or a coin that has value, how much more does God?
Jesus in his own statement of his earthly mission says in Luke 19:10 "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."
B. that God rejoices over one sinner who turns to Him. Rejoices. In v 5 "he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home…"
Is that a picture of the Father? Joyfully carrying those lost home?
C. that not only God but all heaven then rejoices. Something happens in heaven when there is one turning to Christ on earth! Sometimes we make these turnarounds too serious even for God. God rejoices! It is about a party: "Come and rejoice with me…"
Can you imagine the sneering and upset of the Pharisees? I mean the audacity of Jesus to paint God and heaven in such joyful hues!
So in the first two parables we see Jesus pointing clearly at God and heaven, surely the third parable is pointing more at the younger son. Right?
V. No, the opening line gives away Jesus' intent: "There was a man…"
Who is it about? The Man! The Father. And who does the Father picture? God.
So the two sons are minor characters, they're only to demonstrate the character of the main character. Who do the sons represent if the father points to God?
The two sons are cast in the likeness of Jesus' listeners at that moment:
The younger son is the perfect picture of these "people of the land" these sinners and tax collectors. These are those who have lived wildly, ran out of all resources, and have at last come to their senses, and we see them "gathering" to Jesus. The word means "drawing near" -- "Draw near to God," James wrote, "and He will draw near to you"(Jms 4:8). And that is the case.
The older son is the pharisee listening to Jesus who when he hears of rejoicing over a sinner who has repented, even a fellow human brother or sister, is incensed.
"Which son are you?"
You've heard the story read, and you've read it many times yourself.
What does Jesus tell us about the father in this parable?
1. First, notice, the Father listens to his son. He is not an absent father. God is there to hear your prayer, to meet your heart. There is a picture here of the phrase applied to Jesus: "God with us". God is with us.
And when the son says, "I want my half of the inheritance" the Father complies. Perhaps he is of age. Perhaps it is time he allows him to try his wings. Whatever the reason in the story, how does this apply to people?
Already God has given to you and to me everything we need for life and godliness. We have all that we need for spiritual growth. And we now choose how we will spend it. The younger and the older sons spent their inheritance unwisely.
The younger son: leaves, spends, loses all, and then comes to his senses. Literally, "he came to himself" -- clearly this is a state of life that does not picture what God intends for him. He remembers his Father -- that his father is a better master to his servants than his current experience. So, the son decides "I will set out and go back."
The older son: never leaves physically, but never knows the father as the younger one does. He does not entrust his life to his father. Indeed, sweats out his work as duty, and has no enduring nor endearing relationship. You can hear this in his angry words to dad, note the repeated: "You, Your, You…" -- this son takes no responsibility for his life. All his woes are his dad's fault!
Notice, both sons left the Father. Not the other way around. We run from God (physically or in our hearts), God does not run from us. We flee the holy. We flee relationship with God. God awaits our return.
2. And this is our second observation about the character of the Father. The father waits for the son's return!
Verse 20 gives a clue to the father's actions, saying, "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him…" Like he is looking day by day down that road for just a glimpse of His son's return.
How does this position of waiting picture the search of the previous stories?
The Father had already given the son everything he needed to return.
In the previous two stories we are dealing with "wandering" sheep -- who did not have what it takes to return, and an "inanimate" object, which could do nothing for itself.
Clearly, Jesus is showing three different kinds of lostness in these parables.
Some are like sheep who have wandered, they have not the capability to return. They have known the fold and have not rebelled against the shepherd but stupidly wandered from the flock. This one the shepherd searches for.
Others are as dead as that coin, they have value to God, they are innately valuable, that the image of God be restored, but they are dead. These God is searching for by the Holy Spirit and in both these situations, through His body the church.
But the younger and older sons have rebelled. The younger one had relationship with the father and now in rebellion thwarted all the Father is and has given, and gone off to make his own way apart from his father. The Father has given all necessary to return. So, the seeking for this one means to wait. I know of a man named Steve in just such a situation, the younger son of a famous evangelist, Steve has turned from ministry, his wife, his children, and gone off into a life of wildness, prostitution, and sin. He is in rebellion. From whatever cause, Steve is blaming everyone else for his difficulties, but not accepting any responsibility himself. So, perhaps, is on the younger son's path.
This is a father who not only listens but watches for his children
And when verse 20 continues, the father "SAW" and "WAS FILLED WITH COMPASSION FOR HIM"
When the Lord God passed before Moses on the mountain he described his character as: "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin" (Ex 34:6-7).
The father was filled with compassion -- the word is used of Jesus exclusively except for here. It means to feel from the inward depths for another, it literally refers to the "kidneys". This father had deep compassion for the son.
The father runs to the son -- a display of emotion without the decorum of the wealthy in that society -- hugs and kisses him. Commands that he is robed, shoed (not a slave!), and gives him his ring (the family credit card)!
What a picture -- this is God? Sometimes the modern church is harder on those returning home than God is. God says: "Come home Child! I want to have a party in your honor."
When have you experienced this kind of embrace from the Heavenly Father
|
|