Luke 15:11-32

I invite you to take your bibles and turn to Luke chapter 15. We are on page 9:28 in the Pew Bible, Luke chapter 15.

We're continuing the parable of the lost. As today we look at son two or the older son. We're going to do some review of the younger son just so we make sure that we get in the proper context of what's going on. I begin reading. In verse 11, he also said a man had two sons.

The younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that I have coming to me. So he distributed the assets to them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had never nothing. And then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food? And here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up, go to my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired workers. So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.

The son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father told his servants, quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let's celebrate with a feast.

Because this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Now his older brother was in the field, and as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.

So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant. Your brother is here, he told him, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. Then he became angry and dead. Want to go in? So his father came out and pleaded with him.

But he replied to his father, look, I have been slaving many years from you and I have never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me a goat that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you. You slaughter the fattened calf for him. Son, he said to him, you are always with me and everything I have is yours.

But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. May we pray. And Heavenly Father, as we come to this story of your great love and forgiveness, let us apply it to our own lives. Give us just a little glimpse of how wonderful those two things are that you offer them to us.

And let us also be willing to in turn, give forgiveness and love to those around us that we might reflect your image in this world as you intended from the beginning. In your son's name we pray. Amen.

Story of the Prodigal Son is all about God's love and forgiveness. And this is Florida, where we were. It was beautiful to be down there. Can we go to the next slide? Just wanted to share that I'm actually starting today at the end.

And if you hear about God's love and forgiveness in this first slide, if you understand his love and forgiveness, if you can embrace it so that it affects the way you think and the way you emote and the way your convictions are lined up. If your understanding of his love and forgiveness affects your words, what you say and your actions, then you can just tune out the rest of the sermon. But what I want you to remember is that God loves and God forgives. Let's go back to AW Tozer that we read a couple weeks ago where he talks about God's love. Because God is self existent, his love had.

What does it say there? No beginning. And because he is eternal, his love can have. Say it with me. No end.

Because he is intimate, it has.

Because he is holy. Here's the big word. It is the quintessence of all spotless purity. I think that means it's really good. All right.

Because he is immense, his love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless shoreless sea.

God's love and forgiveness are so exceptionally precious and priceless that understand them and appreciating them should change us completely. We can go back and say the same things about his forgiveness and insert that here instead of love, let's read it again that way. Because God Himself exists and his forgiveness has what? No beginning. And because he is eternal, his love can have.

I mean his forgiveness can have no end. And because he is infinite, his forgiveness has no limit. Because he is holy, his forgiveness is the quintessence of all spotless purity. And because he is immense, his forgiveness is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea. The Parable of the Lost is about God's love and forgiveness.

And just as God is beyond our comprehension, we really can't fully comprehend his love and his forgiveness. And even for us to try to compare God to anything that we know is grossly inadequate. The most forgiving and loving grandparent or spouse or parent, if you admire their love and their forgiveness, it's so small compared to God's love and forgiveness. The second commandment forbids us to make images to represent God. So even to try to compare God too much to something that we understand is putting a vast limitation on who he is.

God loves us so much that he's not willing that anyone should perish. He sent His Son to live and to die on the cross for the world that he loves. He loves the least among us. He loves the greatest, he loves the worst, and he loves the best. But he's also faithful and just to forgive us our sins if we confess them.

That's why Jesus suffered, so that all of us could be forgiven again. He forgives the least, he forgives the greatest, he forgives the worst, and he forgives the best. In other words, we, when we're at our worst, God still loves us and forgives us. And we, when we're at the absolute bottom, when we're in the pit, he still loves us and forgives us as much as he does when we are our best or when we are on the mountaintop. And in the story of the Lost, we see in the Son that strayed away that we can never go so far or behave so badly that God is not watching for us and waiting for us to return to him and to receive forgiveness.

And in the parable, we don't find him just watching and waiting. What does he do? He runs. As soon as he sees the Son, without judgment or without condemnation, all of us can be restored to Him. Now, it doesn't mean there are not going to be consequences when we are wayward and when we stray.

But God doesn't hold that against us. His love and forgiveness remain the same. How many of you remember seeing the Passion of Christ by Mel Gibson? Have you watched that? I bought the dvd, I don't know how many years ago that still has the plastic on it because I cannot watch that again.

I Still remember the scene where they're beating Jesus to just within an inch of his life. And I kept saying, stop, please stop. Don't continue to do this. The prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 53, he was despised and rejected by men. A man of suffering who knew what sickness was.

He was like someone that people turned away from. He was despised and we didn't value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities.

Punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. The love of God is so awesome and beyond what we can understand. We went to Florida with Mary's sister and brother. And while we were there, Steve shared this story with me. He said he had gone to his favorite place to eat where they have a fried food that they dip in a very special sauce.

And it's closed on Sunday. Can you guess where it was? Does anybody know Chick fil a? Okay, that was your test. While he was in there one day, he was enjoying his grilled chicken because his wife won't let him eat the fried ones anymore.

There was a man across the way that fell on the floor. And he could see this man was filthy and smelly. His beard and mustache had chicken grease and Chick fil a sauce all over it. And Steve went over to check on him, and guess what? The man was unresponsive.

And Steve thought, this man needs mouth to mouth resuscitation. And Steve was confronted with, do I love my neighbor like myself? And you know what he did? He said, I can't do it. I can't give mouth to mouth to this man.

And the EMTs about that point, they rushed in and. And they resuscitated the man. You know, I said, steve, that's. That just reminds me what Jesus did for us. He was willing not just to do mouth to mouth to resuscitate us, but he gave his life on the cross because of his great love.

But then I had another thought. Steve. What? What if you had done mouth to mouth on that man and when he woke up, he punched you in the face? And I said, he said, I can't believe that this man has his mouth on mine.

You saved his life, but he was completely angry at you for doing it. That's where the world stands when they look at what Jesus did for us on the cross. The world slaps him in the face and rejects what he's done for us. That's how much God loves us. Let's go back to now, the parable of the lost and just do a quick review.

What's the setting? There are tax collectors and sinners that are approaching Jesus and they're listening to him. There are Pharisees and scribes. And of course they're complaining like they always do. They're saying, why does he welcome sinners and why does he eat with them?

And Jesus shares one parable with three parts. He talks about the shepherd and the lost sheep. And they're like, yeah, we understand that we would go after a lost sheep. And he shares about the woman and the lost coin. And they're like, yeah, we understand that we would look for a lost coin.

And then he shares about the Father and the lost Son. And this is where he completely loses them because they cannot comprehend that a son would do these things or that a Father would allow him to. The whole parable is talking about God's love for the One that when they are lost, he desires for them to return. And when they do, there is great. What joy.

We go to verse 11. A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me. This would have been seen as a huge insult to the Father. No son would have done this in Jesus day.

The religious leaders and the non religious leaders, the sinners and those people that thought they were holy, everybody said this is a terrible thing, that the Son would destroy grace his Father in this way. And they're thinking, this son is arrogant, he's prideful, he's demanding, he's demeaning his Father and he's causing embarrassment for his entire family. And we see here the depth of the enmity and the hatred that every sinner has for God our Father and that we want to take the blessings that he gives us and get away from him as far as possible. All those that are listening there, they are angry at this Son for asking for these things. But then they're going to be even more disturbed because in verse 12, what does the Father do?

Instead of saying, you know, you can leave and get out of here. He actually gives him everything that he asks for. And with that it tells us that he went as far away from the Father as he could to a distant country. He squandered his estate in foolish living. He spent everything.

And finally sin had its final result. After it gave some pleasure for a while. There was a famine, he had nothing. He ended up in the lowest places a Jewish man could be, and that's working with pigs. It tells us there he was so hungry that he wanted to eat what the pigs were eating, but they wouldn't let him have anything distant.

Wasting all that God had provided, living like a fool, spending everything and having nothing left. That's the way the world lives. But like the sun, some of us suddenly find ourselves in desperate need with nowhere to turn. We've hit the bottom, going down, down, down. And we start to realize, you know, maybe I should return to God because I cannot help myself anymore.

That's where this young man was. In verse 17. He came to his senses and he thought about, well, even the. The hired workers are better off at home. He said, I'll get up.

I'll go to my father, and I'll say to him, with confession and repentance, I have sinned against and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, but at least let me be one of the hired workers in your house. He remembers his father. He realizes that he's dying and cannot save himself. He realizes that he has to return to the Father.

He realizes that he has to admit a sin. He understands that he isn't worthy of anything. But he still has, in spite of all this, hope that his father's going to accept him back again. It's a picture of where anyone is that is lost in this world and separated from God. Verse 20.

He got up and he went to his father. And while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him. It's like the father had binoculars. He wasn't just looking to the end of the driveway. He was looking way off in the distance.

And when he saw his son, he wasn't angry or thinking, I'm going to punish him when he comes up the drive. He was filled with compassion. And instead of waiting for the Son to get there, what does it do? What does he do? He ran.

He threw his arms around his neck and he kissed him. And when the son repented and said that I have sinned in verse 21, it tells us in verse 22 through 24 that the Father said, let's celebrate. Let's do the very best. He puts the best robe on his son, he puts a ring on his finger, and he gives him new shoes. Not just a mediocre reception.

It's with great love and forgiveness that the Father receives him. Back now up to the point, the Pharisees and the sinners and the tax lifters, they're all saying, we do not understand this at all. This terrible son did this. The father gave him money to run off and squander it. And now instead of disciplining him, when he comes back, his arms are open wide.

They can't fathom that. And Jesus has them right where he wants them to be. Because now a third character enters the story. And unlike the father and unlike the prodigal son, this is the character that they are all going to identify with. Because the attitude of this older brother is the attitude that they have toward the lost.

And in their misunderstanding of God's love and forgiveness, they think that God should look at all of us the way this older son did. Let's go to verse 25.

Now, his older son was in the field, and as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant. Your brother's here, he told him. Your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.

Jesus is now focusing on the third character. And again, this is the character that, that everyone listening is going to relate to. This is the character that Jesus will use to show them where they err in their understanding of the nature of God in regard to those that are lost. The older son, who's already been given his two thirds of his father estate, he's still at home with the father. He's never had to experience lack or want or separation from the father.

But here he is. He's mad and he's complaining. Sometimes we look at Scripture to see what isn't being said. Well, you know, there's no indication here that when his younger brother had approached his dad that he told him, you need to act differently. There's no indication that he even confronted his brother and said, this is wrong what you are doing.

There is no indication that he went to look for his brother to bring him home. And there is no indication, as there is with the father, that he was actually watching for the return of his brother.

Here he is, hot, sweaty, dirty, tired from his labor in the field, and he's surprised to hear music and dancing for this unplanned, unannounced occasion that is not on his Google calendar. So he summons a servant. Instead of going directly to his father, he says what's going on? And when he hears the news, he thinks, you fill in the blank. And this is where all those listening today would have filled in the blank.

Yes, go, brother. You have the right attitude. Convince your dad that he needs to be in the Lowest spot. He needs to suffer for everything that he has done wrong. The religious and the sinners who relate to this brother anticipate that the brother's response is going to be a negative one, because that's how they would respond.

It tells us in verse 28, he did exactly what they would think. He became angry and acting out and pouting. He didn't even want to go into the party. So his father had to leave the celebration. He came out and he didn't just talk to him, he was pleading with him, please listen, hear what I have to say.

But he replied to his father, look, I have been not working. But he says, what? I've been slaving many years for you. And I think here's a bit of an exaggeration. He said, I have never disobeyed your orders.

Have any of your kids ever told you that? I've never disobeyed you. I mean, they're all sinners. That, that just could not have happened. But this, this son is proud and arrogant of who he is too.

He says, yeah, you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. And then he says, but when my brother came, Is that what he says? No, he says, but when this son of yours came, he's distancing himself. Have you ever told your spouse that's your child that's doing that thing right now? You know, it's always our child, but somehow we shift the blame.

When this son of yours came who has devoured your assets with prostitutes. Well, how did he know that? He's assuming the worst about his brother. You slaughter the fattened calf for him.

Then Jesus tells us how the Father responds. And it's the same way that God Almighty responds to the lost when they are found. Son, he said to him, you've always been with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and we had to rejoice because this brother of yours was what was dead. No, he's not physically dead.

This is spiritual death. It's separation from the physical Father. But it pictures our spiritual death or separation from God the Father. And when we come to him in repentance, now we are alive again. Instead of being lost, we are found.

The Father is trying to explain. You need to rejoice with me. Because of this, we go back to Aw Tozer. Would you read it with me? Because God is self existent, his love has no beginning.

Because he is eternal, his love can have no end. Because he is infinite, he has no limit. Because he is Holy. It is the quintessence of all spotless purity. Because he is immense.

His love is an inconsequently vast, bottomless, shoreless sea. The Parable of the Lost is about. Now you answer the question. It's about God's love and it's about his forgiveness.

And just as God is beyond our comprehension, we really can't fully comprehend how much he loves us and how much he forgives. Remember, he's not willing that any should perish. That's why he sent Jesus to live and to suffer and to die for us. He's faithful and just to forgive us every single time when we're at our best, when we're at our worst, the least and the greatest. And we can never stray so far or behave so badly that God is not watching with binoculars for us and waiting for us to return and to receive his forgiveness.

And what's surprising, the parable, he even goes beyond that. He doesn't just watch. He actually runs to us to bring us back to Him. Without judgment or condemnation. All of us can be restored to God.

Now remember, you're going to have consequences if you live away from the Lord. But God loves you and he forgives you when you return to Him.

So how do we conclude this? Today we come to a statement. I want you to read that top line. What does it say? God loves you and is willing to forgive you.

Let's make it personal and change it to me, God loves me and is willing to forgive me. Now Satan wants you to think that God's love has a limit. He's like, well, God only loves so much. And beyond that, you know, you don't have any more hope. And Satan wants you to think that you have gone too far to be forgiven.

I hear people say I've just sinned too much. I've been too awful. I can't get back to God. That is a lie from Satan, because you just have to come back to him and he will run to you. Jesus gives this precious invitation in Matthew 11.

Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, when you're at the bottom, when you're in the pit, when you are in the mud with the pigs. And when you do that, I will give you rest. He says, I'm going to come alongside you, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. God loves you and is willing to forgive you.

The next statement, let's read it together. Now.

Here we go. Read it with me. God commands you to love and to forgive. Let's personalize it with me. God commands me to love and to forgive.

Just as God is a loving and forgiving God, we're commanded to be the same with others. In John 13, Jesus said, I give you a new command. Love one another. Not the way your mom or your grandmother does, but love one another, just as I, Jesus, have loved you. You are to love one another.

And Jesus also gives this command that we be forgiving. It's part of the model prayer. It should be in all of our prayers. Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. And it's the only part that Jesus explains about the model prayer.

He goes on to say in verse 14, for if you forgive others. Can we be on the next slide, please?

He goes on in Matthew 6:14 to say, for if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But here's the warning.

If you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses. Now, we're not going to go into a large message about that today, but what you should read from that, it's serious. If you don't forgive others. It's a major deal in our lives that we need to face every single day. In Matthew 18, Jesus gives the story of a servant that owned a great deal of money to his master.

He had no way of repaying it. And if you remember the story, what did the master do? He forgave him. And then immediately the man went out and somebody owed him just a small amount of money. And because that man could not pay him, what did he have?

That man happened had him thrown into prison.

It's a parable about the importance of obeying God's command to forgive. We go to the end of that story. It says, then after he had summoned him, his master said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed.

So also my Heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart. Today I want you to think about God's love and his forgiveness. Every week in the bulletin, we put some questions in there and it always says for discussion for families and small groups. I would encourage you to use that individually to think through the message today, to examine your heart. Don't just leave and think, oh yeah, we listened to that today.

God wants all of us to learn something. Go over those questions with someone else or by yourself. But what you need to think about today is either you're completely lost from the Father and you've never come to him for forgiveness. He is waiting. All you have to do is come to him and say, God, I'm a sinner.

I can't do anything to help myself. Where I am in my life, I'm completely lost. And the Father's going to say, I'm here to forgive you and accept the gift of salvation that I offer to you because Jesus died on the cross for your sins. And then he will celebrate with joy. But if you're a believer today, you might be in the position that you're wandering a little ways from God or even further.

You know that he's your Father, but you've wandered off and Satan may be telling you, look, you know you've been away too long. God's waiting for you to come back and to get back into a day by day hourly fellowship with him, to live close to him again. And he's willing to take you in. And then all of us have to learn to deal daily, to remind ourselves we have to love people, we have to forgive people, and we have to strive to do it in the same way that God does, which is completely impossible. But the good thing is that his spirit will empower you to, to forgive and to love in a way that you can't do that in your own strength.

During our invitation time today, I'm going to be at the back. Hunter's going to be standing at the back with me. Maybe you need to talk to somebody about coming back to your relationship to the Lord or coming to him at the first thing. We'll be back. Just make your way as we have our time of music.

Would you stand with me? We're going to close in prayer as the worship team comes forward. And Hunter and I are going to make our way to the back. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity. We thank you for the special gift of your love and your forgiveness.

Help us to understand it in a way that changes our life and our thinking, our actions and our words. And Father, if there are any among us today that have not given their life to you, that they haven't come to you to admit their lostness, that you would press them to do that today, that you would prompt them in Jesus name we pray, Amen.