Sabbatical Report: Visiting Other Churches

Due to my job, going “church shopping” is something that is very unfamiliar to me. In fact, I have never been in a position where I had to look for a church home. Thus my experience this summer of visiting other churches was one that was quite unfamiliar to me. Now I should add that I was not really church shopping. I don’t have plans to leave Faith Church and join another church in Nashville. Nonetheless, I approached visiting other churches in the area with the mind-set of one who was looking for a church home and was thus evaluating the worship services and the overall setting of the church. Based on my experiences of visiting churches this past summer, I came away with the following thoughts and ideas.

1. In the first few minutes of the worship service the focus must be on the fact that God is present and we are here to worship him. It’s not about us; it’s about God. And it’s not about what we have done or doing, it’s about what God has done in his grace.

2. I also would like our music to reflect the diversity we have here at Faith. I’m exploring more ways of doing that with our Worship Team and would welcome any suggestions anyone has regarding music. We want our music and praise to be meaningful and to glorify God above all else.

3. I want to include the children more directly in the worship service. I would like to reintroduce children’s bulletins and have them available on a regular basis. If anyone is willing to help with that, I would greatly appreciate it. I also want to speak more to the children within the setting of the service itself and explain to the children what we are doing and why we do things.

4. I also will be tapping more into the heritage and the deep roots of our faith throughout the centuries. Our church is not just a modern phenomenon by any means. Our roots go deeply into the past and there is so much we can learn from Christians who lived before us. That is why I have started using prayers and responses that reflect our rich Christian heritage through the ages as well.

5. In general I found the preaching to be across the board as far as quality is concerned. Some were little more than popular lectures on how to live as a Christian while others were solid and helpful explanations of what the Bible says. What struck me about a few places was the attempt on the part of the pastor to reach out to a postmodern setting by having the congregation submit questions or the theme of the sermon itself. This is the basis of the “I Have a Question” sermon series which I will be doing next year.

6. On a more practical note, I was also struck by the casual dress of most of the pastors of churches that would be similar to our church. The Council and I discussed this prior to my coming back and that is why I have been dressing less formally. We are not a high church nor are we a “rich” church and I was concerned that a jacket and tie might give a mixed message as to the kind of church we are.

7. Finally, I want to continue to remember and remind each other that it is all about grace! It’s so easy to focus on our responsibilities and duties. They are there without question, but our focus must be on God and His amazing grace!

Overall, I believe that we are doing a good job of worship in Faith Church. I think it’s important to “unpack” and explain a portion of Scripture in a sermon and I will continue to do this. I think it is important that we truly have a sense of being in the presence of God. Even if they have been challenged firmly in their Christian walk, we need to make sure that people leave the service realizing and celebrating that no matter what we did or no matter what we do in the coming week, God’s grace covers us and God loves us. I want us all to live in the joy and freedom of grace.

Pastor Jerry
November 2009

Luke 15:17-19 “Fixing Our Sin”

Introduction:
I once watched my neighbors cut down a huge oak tree in their back yard. They brought chain saws ropes and ladders. They carefully laid out their plan and started cutting. At one point they were ready to cut off a large limb. They had a rope over another branch above, tied it around the lower limb to be cut off and then had someone holding the rope to lower the branch to the ground.
It was a great plan until the laws of physics took over and they learned that the limb weighed more than the person holding the other end of the rope. The limb fell down, the man went up and both just narrowly missed colliding in mid-air. A great plan that didn’t quite work out.
Of course bad plans are not restricted to back yard tree cutters. Five years ago, Oprah Winfrey gave away a new car to each member of her studio audience–her entire audience–for free one day. Audience members were thrilled and the car maker planned on a huge boost for the name recognition it would give them.
Most people remember the car give away, but who actually today remembers what the car given away was? It was a Pontiac. Everybody applauded Oprah Winfrey for her generosity, but they forgot all about Pontiac, which came up with the idea for the giveaway. A great plan that didn’t work out the way they had planned.
This morning we continue looking at the story of the Prodigal Son and we see how the younger son makes a very careful plan as to how he will fix the desperate situation he is in while in the distant land. His plan, however, was flawed in two ways: he thought he could fix it himself and he completely underestimated the love of his father to forgive him and accept him back home as his son. Let’s read Luke 15:11-20.

I. The Son Comes to His Senses
II. The Son’s Plan
III. The Father’s Response

I. The Son Comes to His Senses as we see in verse 17.
As Jesus continues the story, the son is in the distant land feeding the pigs when he “came to his senses.” The son’s change of heart is first a realization of how foolish he has been.
I’ve mentioned before that we like to use the line, “Let me know how that works out for you.” Usually it is said when someone has an idea that we think is not really going to work. For example, imagine someone telling me they were thousands of dollars in debt and their solution to their financial mess is to go to Vegas and win a million dollars. If they would not listen to reason or any other counsel, I would likely say to them, “Well, let me know how that works for you;” in other words, that won’t ever work!
At this point the son, in effect, asks himself: “So how is your plan working for you?” He has to admit that his plan to enjoy life by spending all his money has not worked well at all.
So he starts thinking back to his father’s farm and knows he has been foolish. He is standing there in the mud with the pigs, hungry and slowly starving to death. He realizes that even his father’s servants have a place to sleep and good food to eat. The motive for his return is not profound, but it is at least a start.
In the first century, there were three levels of servants on a Jewish farm. There were bondsmen who were slaves but part of the estate and were almost part of the family. There were slaves of a lower class who would have to answer to the bondsmen. And then there were the hired servants who were outsiders and did not belong to the estate.
These hired men were free but had nothing invested in the farm and didn’t really care about what happened at all to the farm or the owner. They were simply hired hands to do some work for a short time and was easily expendable. Even the ones who were hired on to do temporary work are eating better than he was. What is important to note at this point is that while he may be admitting, he is not yet repenting.
We do that at times, don’t we? We come to the realization that whatever we have been doing to try to find happiness is not working. At times we stand there in the mud and realize this just isn’t the answer!
When I was in college, I had a couple “come to my senses” moments. When I was still a bit of a rebel, I remember my sister talking to after I had hosted a party in my parents’ house while they were gone. She said, “Don’t let your actions mess up your scholarship or your school plans.” In other words, how is this working for you? My answer was, “Not so good.” Later on when I was still had hopes of becoming a doctor, I was standing in the midst of calculus and genetics and realizing I was truly in a distant land and I needed to do something different.
That is what is going on with the son. He realizes that this isn’t working for him and he needs a better plan. True repentance and reconciliation are not on his mind at this point as of yet. Instead he comes up with a plan to fix it himself, which is what we see next.

II. The Son’s Plan is described in verses 18-19.
The son carefully rehearses what he is going to say to his father when he returns. He will say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.” He recognizes that what he has done was actually a sin against God. But he also realizes that he has sinned against his father for he has caused great heartache. It is quite likely that he is acknowledging that he has put his father at risk by removing his means of support for his father as he gets older.
So at this point, he acknowledges that this has all been his fault, which is commendable. He knows that he is not just the victim of a bad set of circumstances or bad breaks. He is the one who has messed up and he admits this.
There is a lot we, in our culture, could learn from this attitude on the part of the son. We live in a culture in which people don’t like to think that things are their fault. Some will say they are having problems it’s because of their upbringing. Some will blame their bosses or their companies for the bad situation they are in. Some will say it’s the current government that is the cause of their problems. Many people today will blame anyone and everyone they can think of because they don’t want to say that they made a mistake.
However, we need to honestly come to terms with our sins and our mistakes. We have to stop blaming other people and simply say that it is our sin that caused the problems. Let’s stop blaming others and accept the responsibility for where we are now. This son not only realizes his situation but admits that it was his doing and no one else’s fault. Confession is a great starting place and great to do, but then the son goes off track in his plan.
Notice how he carefully still tries to be in control of the situation. In his rehearsed speech to his father, he admits that he is no longer worthy to be called a son. He says that he will take on the status of one who is not the father’s son. He still calls his father his father since he is clinging to some vestige of what they had before and wants to have that relationship.
However, notice that the son is really telling the father what he should be doing with him and in doing so, he is setting the terms for the renewed relationship. He disowns himself because he knows he has that coming. But that is something only the father could do.
Moreover, he tells the father to make him like one of the hired men. Now remember the classifications of the servants on the first century farm. He is saying that he will be an outsider, someone that is hired only for temporary work. He will have nothing invested in the farm but only would hope to be paid.
So what is likely his plan in this regard? First, he is still maintaining his independence and considers himself to be an equal to his father. He has no ownership in the farm and he also is still not under the umbrella of sonship.
Second, by having this position of a hired man, he will be paid for his work and that will make it possible for him to repay his father for all the money that he lost while he was partying. He can maintain his pride and his independence. And he can try to fix the problem he made in the first place.
Notice that he doesn’t ask his father to do this for him; he will tell him. He, in effect, is telling his father, “Ok, I have made a huge mistake and I sinned against you. However, I have a plan that will fix it. I will earn money by working for you, pay you back what was lost and we’ll be even.” In other words, the son is saying, “I’ll save myself from my injustice to you.” He wants no grace.
We would say that he is acting like a good responsible person at this point. He will live in the village and not on the farm so he won’t be a burden. He won’t be taking anything away from his brother for he will work for whatever he needs. He knows that the farm belongs to his brother and he is not asking for any part of that. He views this solution primarily as a financial solution and a justice issue.
We sometimes do what this son does when we sin against God. We recognize that we have done wrong, carefully determine what damage has been done by our sin. In other words, we confess our sin to God. In sorrow, we admit that what we have done is wrong.
And then we go about trying to fix it. “I’m sorry for what I did God, but I have a plan!” “I’ll read the Bible an hour more a day! I’ll pray 30 minutes more a day!” “I’ll go to church more often and not kick any dogs when they get in my way.” “If I’ve stolen anything, I’ll pay it back and if I have hurt anyone, I’ll make it right as well.” In effect, we say, “Don’t worry God, I’ll take care of this! I can fix this and we’ll be good!”
Bryan Chapell tells of a family where he lived where the mother of the family had had enough. The young mom, tired of all the whining, back talk and lack of cooperation from her family declared herself to be on strike. In fact, she put a sign in the front yard that said, “Mom on Strike!” and moved out of the house and was living in the tree house in the back yard. From there she vowed not to come down until things had changed. A local television station heard about this and went out to interview the family and got the mother’s take on things.
However, Chapell wanted to hear how the father would respond. Hoping to get the sympathy of husbands everywhere, he shrugged at the camera and said, “I have the kids doing the chores again. I’ve told them to cool it with the sarcasm. We are trying to make amends and do whatever we can to get her to come down.” He was hoping that the right words and actions would fix the wrongs that had been done.
That is what we try to do with God in our sin. We confess our sins and we say we are sorry, and that is good. And then we tell God all the things we are going to do to fix it and make things better again. We say, “Just watch me God and I’ll show you I can be good!” But when we do this, we forget about our Father’s nature or don’t understand our Father’s true nature.

III. What is the Father’s Response?
We will look at the father’s response in more detail next week, but for now let’s look at two things he does. He goes out to meet the son with joy and compassion. He won’t let his son come back into the village community all by himself. He runs out to him which is something a father in the Middle East would never do.
And we’ll see that the father doesn’t even let him finish his carefully prepared speech. In other words, the father takes the son’s carefully worked out speech and plan and throws it out. He makes it very clear that this plan will not be needed nor will it work.
And clearly this is not how the son thought his plan would be received. The son likely envisioned the father listening with grave seriousness to his plan and then after careful consideration, he would hopefully agree to it. The son would endure the humiliation in the village, find a place to live and slowly but surely work himself back into some semblance of respect. But all the while maintaining his independence and pride and he would fix it! If we are like this younger son when we sin in a big ways, we are even more like him in coming to terms with all of our sins.
And so we need to see again that God doesn’t do business with us in that way. God doesn’t look at our meager efforts to make things right with him and accept them. God looks at our efforts to be more spiritual and more godly and shakes his head with pity. God looks at our attempts to prove to God that we can fix this and is filled with compassion.
Bryan Chapell tells of a friend of his whose daughter had disobeyed them and handled the family car in a way that caused an accident. The daughter could not afford to pay for the repairs or the traffic ticket and so the parents paid both costs with the understanding that the daughter would pay them back over time. However, she learned that it was difficult to do and she struggled to keep making the payments. Her parents had to keep reminding her of her responsibilities and obligations, which frustrated both the daughter and her parents.
Finally after one of the reminding sessions, the daughter exploded: “Daddy, don’t you and Mom know that I realize what I did was wrong? I know I was irresponsible. I know it’s my problem. I wish you would just get off my case so that I can figure out a way to fix this!” Her father responded: “Honey, what I really want you to figure out is that by yourself you can’t fix this!” We simply can’t fix our sin by ourselves and that will become evident as the story proceeds.
What does God do for us instead? He runs to us, grabs us and says to us throw all those things away! He looks at us and tells us, “You can’t fix this! Stop trying!” He is the only one who can fix this; the only one who can take away the sin and the offence.
He looks at us in our pious attempts to be holy to show God how sorry we are and says, “Stop it! That is what I sent Jesus to do.” If we want to be right in God’s eyes, then the one we have to look at is Jesus, not ourselves! That is whom God looks at. He looks at Jesus and His actions and instead of seeing Jesus doing all those wonderful things, He sees us being perfectly obedient and He says “perfect!”
It is so easy for us when we sin to try to fix things ourselves. The women from By Faith know how well that works, right? What do you have to know about coming to terms with your addiction? There has to be a higher power. Someone in the grip of addiction cannot fix it themselves. They could tell us many stories about how they were going to fix it and get themselves straight. But until they get to the point where they realize they can’t do it with God, they are lost.
And here is the thing: they are not alone! Whether it’s addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, money or whatever is your addiction or sinful behavior, we can’t fix it ourselves! We can recognize that we have a problem, we can admit it, but we can’t fix it ourselves.
But here is the good news: we don’t have to because we have a prodigal, lavish Father! God, in His lavish and wild grace, has fixed it already through Jesus. All we need to do is come to him, admit our sins and our sinfulness and He says, “I know. I’ve been watching. That is what Jesus had to die for. I’m glad you’re home.”

The Church and Our Culture Today

Over the next couple of months, I will be writing about some of the things I learned during my sabbatical this past summer.  This month I will be writing about our world and how we can respond to the world we are living in today.

How is the world different from when you were younger?  Obviously the answer to that question depends how old you are, but I think we would all agree that the world in which we live is changing significantly.  We have been living in a postmodern age and that has shaped a lot of what we do as the church.  What follows is very much a simplification of postmodernism and its thought, but I think it is helpful to understand why things are the way they are today.

Postmodern thought means there are no boundaries and no absolute truth.  What every person experiences is the key.  If something is pleasing and good and enjoyable experience, then it is automatically good.  So you can hold any doctrines you wish, even if they are contradictory.  A postmodern person can believe in Christ and the Bible and also reincarnation and not see any contradiction at all.

Moreover, if you don’t want to believe in something in the Bible, that is ok.  A person’s beliefs are very personal and revolve around whatever form of truth each person wants to have.  If it works for that person, then it is good for that person.  The reality of sin is not a major concern in postmodern thought.  In a postmodern church, you can believe what you want to believe.  If you try to convince anyone of your view, you are viewed as intolerant or simply wrong.

Now you can easily imagine that evangelism has really run into hard times with this kind of cultural mind-set being so prevalent.  What right does anyone have to say that their set of beliefs is the right one and that others should change their views to conform with yours?  A person who holds to certain beliefs may be respected for having such firm beliefs, but the moment he or she tries to convince others, they have stepped way over the line according to postmodern thought.

So how does the church respond and live in such a wildly tolerant and diverse climate?  I believe the solution is a renewed emphasis on orthodox Christianity where doctrine is taught and the Bible’s teachings are strongly upheld.  However, this must be much more than simply teaching the truths of the Bible.  Christians must not only believe it, they must live it out fully and authentically.

Moreover, a postmodern person tends to think globally and in a multi-cultural and multi-generational way.  There is a great deal of admiration and respect for groups that include a variety of ethnicities and in a wide range of generations.  I believe this positions us very well at Faith Church as we respond to our culture.  Our church is clearly representative of various generations and certainly we reflect several cultures.  The simple make up of our church would be appealing to a typical postmodern person.

Thus the best response to postmodernism is to be a confessional, orthodox and diverse church which strongly emphasizes grace and genuine worship.  As we present ourselves, we don’t need to provide doctrinal answers as much as grace lived out and experienced.  The best way to appeal to a postmodernist in sermons is the story of redemption as revealed in Scripture.

We must also focus on witness, proclamation and mission both locally and around the world.  We don’t need to dumb down our worship but should let our service reflect the fullness of worshiping God.  Recent studies have shown that what people want is preaching the word with conviction, especially doctrine of sin and grace.  It is all about sin and grace, not just as doctrine, but lived out in confession and reconciliation with one another.  Our Christian faith must then be lived with integrity and honesty.

The final area that we need to focus our efforts in is in the area of mission.  We are not called to be the body of Christ and do nothing.  We are to be Christ’s hands and feet in this world but we must do this with the full authority of all of Scripture.   That is why I am so eager to get involved in tutoring students in our community.  By doing that we can make a difference for our Lord and have something very positive to say to those who are living in this culture today.

Pastor Jerry

October 2009

Luke 15:13-16

I enjoy eating chocolate ice cream.  When I was younger, I could eat a huge bowl of ice cream before bed every night and I could get away with it.  Now I have to be careful and I restrict myself to a small bowl every once in a while.  Now eating ice cream is not a sin by any means but it is something that I have to watch out for because if I eat too much, it won’t be good for me.  But it’s hard to do.  Why?  Because I really like chocolate ice cream!  If I didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be a problem for me.  We could have a freezer full of strawberry ice cream and it’s not a problem.  I could avoid that all day and not be a problem But it’s chocolate ice cream!

Why am I telling you about chocolate ice cream?  Because we need to be honest about our sins.  Very frankly, we enjoy sin.  I mean, we really enjoy sinning!  Often we try to convince ourselves that our sin is something we don’t like to do and so we are surprised when we do sin.  Quite simply, we sin because it’s our nature to sin and sometimes, many times, we sin because we like to sin.  It’s not like the devil is forcing us to do something we find abhorrent and we are fighting him tooth and nail. More often than not, it’s our own sinful nature seeing something that is wrong and we say, “Ok!”

That’s important for us to recognize as we continue looking at the parable of the father and two sons.  We can look at the younger son as being foolish – and indeed he was –  but he represents us in so many ways.  He ran away and lived apart from his father because that is what he really wanted to do.  We often do the same.  Let’s read Luke 15:11-16.

I. The Betrayal

II. The Sins

III. Our Father

I. The Betrayals

First, the younger son rebels against his father by asking for his share of the estate.  And, as we saw last week, in a real sense he was wishing his father to be dead.  Pastor Viken Galoustian, a pastor in Iran, tells of a Christian father who called him one night and said, “My son wants me to die!”

Galoustian found out that this man’s son had asked the same question as the younger son.  Three months later the father, who previously had been in good health, died.  His wife said, “He died that night!” meaning that the night the son asked him for his inheritance the father had died then.  The shock was so great that his life was over that night.

Some of you have experienced the pain of rejection when your child has rejected you by what they have chosen to do.  Others of you have perhaps done that to your parents or another of your family and you now know the pain that such rejection causes.  This is the pain the younger son causes to his father.  This son is rejecting the one who loves him completely and unconditionally.

But there is even more going on than what we may realize and we see that in the first part of verse 13 where we read that “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country…”

Now there were many Jews at this point in history that did go to distant countries to start businesses.  If that were the case, the father would have given him some “bus money” and sent him.  This son gathered up all he had on his own because he never intended to come back.

And the son is showing callous disregard for his father because he gathers all he had and leaves.  In the ancient world, even if a son were to get his part of the estate before a father’s death, it would be expected that part of his obligation is to use that to care for the father with that money.  The son instead gathers up everything, leaves and spends it wildly in a distant land.  The father is left without the support that he could expect but still gives his son all he asks for.

We are often like our son in our lives.  Sometimes we do what this son does in a big way.  Often in our youth, we reject everything our parents may have taught us and leave it all behind.  Others may dabble in such rebellion but keep it somewhat hidden.

When I was in high school, that described me.  I had rather long hair, smoked and drank occasionally and partied frequently.  I still showed up for church with my parents but my heart wasn’t in it.  I thought the things my parents believed were rather lame and out of date.  I guess you could say I was a partial prodigal and I thank God that He rescued me from such a life that could have hurt me or derailed me.

However, if we are honest, we should all admit that we still do the prodigal thing from time to time.  We may not leave our families or leave our beliefs, but we still will take the blessings that we have from our Father and spend them recklessly.  We have freedom in Christ and so who cares if we engage in a little – or a lot of – sin?  God will forgive me, right? So what’s the big deal?  And the fact is that God will forgive and doesn’t ever stop loving us, but he is also saddened and hurt by our betrayal and our wanton use of His blessings.

And some times we simply go off the deep end and get totally wrapped up in ourselves.  It may even appear harmless or we may justify it somehow, but in our heart of hearts, we know we are doing certain things because it makes me happy; or at least, we think it will make us happy.  We live for ourselves, defining our happiness in terms of what the world says will make us happy.

Now let’s be very honest here with this: We love doing this!  We love sinning!  Yes, I know there are things that we feel terrible about after we do them; I understand that.  But the reason we did sin in the first place is because we wanted to do and loved doing it.

We sin because we love sinning!  No one stands over us and has to convince us to sin.  All we need is our own nature to whisper in our ear to sin and we gladly say, “OK!”  We don’t look lustfully at another person because someone forced us to do it. We want to do it!  We all do things that we think will make us happy but that we know are wrong.  We see next that this is what the younger son did.

II. The Sins

Verse 13 simply says that the son then “squandered his wealth in wild living.”  Jesus does not mention specifically what this “wild living” consisted of.  The older brother describes it as lavish living and being with prostitutes, but there is no way he could have known that since he hadn’t talked with his brother and he may be overstating the case.  Jesus says he wasted his money in lavish living, but it does not necessarily means immoral living.  He had no one to tell him what to do; he could live as he pleased and he did so with gusto!

Two doses of reality brought his new life of freedom to a screeching halt.  First, he soon discovered that money continually spent without being replenished is soon depleted.  He evidently did not find a job and so had no other money coming in.  With all his wild living, it took little time and he was broke.

The second dose of reality was a famine hit the area where he was, making food scarce and expensive.  This also meant that those who might have otherwise helped him were not able to help him.  It’s like the old blues song, “Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.”  When you can’t buy the things your “friends” want anymore, they don’t want to be your friends anymore and you’re on your own.  His life of luxury soon turned into a life of misery because he was by himself in a distant land.

Just how bad it became is seen in the job that he had to take.  He hired himself out as a beggar to someone else to feed pigs which was one of the lowliest jobs a Jew could hold because pigs were unclean.  In the ancient world, beggars would often stop at the homes of landowners asking for help.  A landowner would often offer to give them the most menial job that they could think of.  We might say today that we’ll help you but you have to clean our toilets first.  Feeding the pigs was the lowliest of all the possible jobs and the landowner may have simply hoped that the son would say, “I won’t do that!!” and walk away.  But the son is so desperate that he agrees to feed the dirty pigs.

But even then, the son discovered that he could fall even further.  He still didn’t earn enough to feed himself and he was slowly starving to death.  He found himself wanting to eat the carob seed pods that he was giving the pigs.  These seed pods were likely the fruit of a wild carob plant and tasted horribly bad.  As such it was suitable for pigs but it would provide no nourishment for a person.  He is so poor that he longed for the nasty tasting fruit the pigs were eating.  However, no one would give him any of those either or at least not enough to survive.  He had hit bottom and felt absolutely miserable.

Now before we scoff at this young man and say it serves him right let’s realize that this picture also describes us as sinners before God. Simply because of our sin, we are like this young son without Jesus.  We may think we are really good people but the Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We were not always good; we were sinners in need of repentance.

And still today many of us today are looking for the things that will make us happy and affirmed.  Only today, our culture approves of it; it is not obviously stupid thing to do.  We are told that it is okay to get all kinds of money and spend it any way you want.

Henri Nouwen writes that as long as we let the world around us define our happiness, we are going to be sadly disappointed.  Nouwen wrote, “The world says ‘Yes, I will love and accept you IF you are good-looking, intelligent and wealthy.  I will love you IF you have a good education, a good job, and good connections.  I love you IF you produce much, sell much and buy much.’”

The world is filled with such IF statements and we cannot possibly begin to fulfill them all.  Nouwen continues, “As long as we keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain ‘hooked’ to the world – trying, failing, and trying again.”

Nouwen describes it in terms of addiction for it is easy to become addicted to the values of the world.  The world says you need to accumulate wealth and power, status and admiration.  You need to have lavish consumption of food and drink and of sexual satisfaction.  The problem is that all these addictions create expectations that will never satisfy our deepest needs.

Fortune magazine quotes a comment made by billionaire H. Ross Perot: “Guys, just remember, if you get real lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you go out and buy a lot of stuff – it’s gonna break. You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world. It has air conditioning. It’s got a pool. Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out. Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world. Nobody is smiling, and I’ll tell you why. Something broke that morning. The generator’s out; the microwave oven doesn’t work….Things just don’t mean happiness.”

Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University conducted a survey of U.S. workers, which shows how we can end up being very confused about our attitudes and feelings about money and thus living in a distant land.  It reported that while 89 percent agree that “our society is much too materialistic,” 84 percent also say, “I wish I had more money than I do.”  71 percent believe “being greedy is a sin against God,” yet 76 percent say, “having money gives me a good feeling about myself.”   69 percent admire those who “take a lower paying job in order to help others.” And 52 percent want to reduce their work hours. Still, 68 percent would be willing to work longer hours if it meant more pay.  Society could be improved, say 71 percent, if people placed less emphasis on money.  At the same time, 80 percent admire those who “make a lot of money by working hard.”

As long as we are confused by attitudes like this, we are in that distant land of the younger son.  So what do we do?  We must simply look to the Father.

III. Now let’s look again at Our Father in this setting.

In spite of this son’s rebellion, the father still shows much love and care for him in two ways.  First, in spite of the son’s disrespect, the father still gives him the inheritance.  As we saw last week, a “normal” father would have kicked him out of the family.  This father, though pained and hurt, still gives the son the freedom to pursue what he desires even though he knows well what may happen.

Second, the father begins his vigil, waiting for the son to return.  The worst case scenario would be his son would die in a distant land.  The best case scenario is that he would come back but probably come back a beggar.  Nonetheless, he is watching because Jesus says that when the younger son returned, his father saw him when he was a long way off; the father never gave up on his son.

What we see in this father is a picture of our heavenly Father.  God still gives us freedom and blessings even when we don’t deserve them.  It is not true that wealth and success are always a sign of blessing and favor from God.  The son had all the wealth he wanted and was far from being blessed and in the father’s favor.  God will give us the freedom to use His gifts in the way we desire.

Sometimes we use such blessings in a way that honors God and many times we use them for ourselves.  God has given us the blessing of living in a wealthy nation where we have more than the vast majority of others in the world, but this does not mean that God is pleased with us.  He may in fact be seeing what we will do with this gift from His hand.  And many today, including ourselves, in our culture are being very prodigal in that we are spending these gifts on lavish living that is focused on ourselves.  God has given us the gift of health and we squander it by doing things that hurt our bodies.

But God our Father is always waiting to see if we’ll realize the blessings of life with Him.  And in our case, there is no question as to what condition we were in: we were dead, hopelessly dead in sin and rebellion against God.  And so God sent His Son to us to die instead of us so that we won’t have to die.  And then God, through His Holy Spirit, guides us back to Him and throws us the biggest welcome home party you can imagine!

The story Jesus tells is a story about the father and it is a story about our Father in heaven.  The word prodigal is, of course not used in the story; it is a label given to this story.  The word simply means lavish or wild and so it is said that the younger son was wild and lavish in his spending.  But the parable would be better called, as in a book by Pastor Tim Keller, “The Prodigal God.”  God is lavish and wild in providing for us when we don’t deserve it.  God is lavish and wild in providing the means for our salvation in Christ.

So what?  If you are living in a state of rebellion, whether mild or severe, realize that God is there, He is still loving us, having given His Son for us and still providing for us.  He is sad when we don’t want to be with Him and live with Him.

Steve Brown tells of a time when he was in high school and he didn’t care how he did in school.  He said that all changed one day when his teacher talked with him after class about a test he had failed.  She said, “Stephen, you can do a whole lot better than this!” Then she started weeping.  Do you know what happened? The next test he got an A, not because he was so smart but because he had a teacher who loved him so much that she shed tears over his failure.

If we are failing, God, who loved us so much that He gave up His Son, is looking and waiting for us to come back and do better because we love Him.  He is wanting us to come to him, providing His Spirit to bring us back to Him because He is the Prodigal God.

Luke 15:1-2, 11-12 “The Two Brothers”
Introduction:
I knew my parents for 30 and 50 years respectively.  I grew up with them and knew what they were like.  However, as I get older I wish I had known them better. I wish I had taken advantage of the time I had with them to ask them questions about their lives, their upbringing and their stories.  They were very familiar to me but I wish I had taken the time to learn about them more and to plumb the depths of their insights and wisdom.
The story of the Prodigal Son, which we are looking at today and over the next 5 sermons, is also very familiar.  Most of us have heard it more times than what we can remember. You’ve heard a lot of sermons on this story. Yet I want us to sit down with this parable in the next 5 sermons and really look intently at it.
Henri Nouwen once saw a copy of Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son and was captivated by it.  When he finally got a chance to look at it in the museum in St. Petersburg in Russia, he spent literally hours just looking at it. He didn’t just look and then move on.  He studied it intently to let the images soak in.  That is what I want us to do with this story because there is so much for us to learn about ourselves, our culture and our Lord.   We will see what this says about what our relationship should be to our God as we live in His amazing grace. Let’s read Luke 15:1-2, 11-32.
I. The Setting of the Parable    II. The Two Brothers   III. The Two Approaches to Life

I. The Setting of the Parable
To understand what Jesus is doing in this story, we really need to go back to the first two verses of Luke 15.  Luke writes, “Now the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were all gathering around to hear him.  But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”  This setting is not at all uncommon for Jesus.  Jesus often hung around with the poor, the outcast, the ones on the fringe.  Jesus was like a magnet and people loved to gather around Him.
There are two primary groups that Luke points out in this setting.  First are the tax collectors and “sinners.”  The tax collectors were the people that everyone hated.  They regularly gouged the people as they collected taxes for the Roman Empire.  If you didn’t pay them enough, they could make your life miserable.
The “sinners” were those who did not meet the standards that the Pharisees had laid out.  The sinners ranged from prostitutes to people who just weren’t not as good as the religious leaders were or expected others to be.  Some, like the prostitutes and tax collectors, were immoral but most were normal people going about their business but not very “religious” about how they were living their lives.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law, on the other hand, were on the far other extreme.  These were the people who knew how to live a thoroughly religious life.  They knew the law and they knew exactly what needed to be done in order to obey the law.  In fact, they added layer upon layer to the Old Testament law of Moses just to make sure that every single aspect of life was covered under their rules and regulations.
What compounded the problem was that the sinners and tax collectors were eating with Jesus.  It is important to realize that in this culture, to invite someone to eat with you was a great honor.  To eat with someone meant that you wanted to share your life with that person.
Moreover, Luke said that the Pharisees accused Jesus of “welcoming” the sinners and tax collectors.  So it is possible that Jesus had invited these people over for dinner and was eating with them.  It may be comparable today of someone who lives in a nice neighborhood going out to invite the drug dealers, the prostitutes, the street people and the gang members to his house for a meal.  Imagine the reaction if all these “kinds” of people showed up in a nice quiet neighborhood!  These are not the kind of people you see in the Christian bookstore!  What kind of person associates with people like that?
So, we have Jesus meeting with all these people, talking with them and associating with them.  We have the Pharisees observing this, shaking their heads with disapproval.  Clearly this teacher Jesus is going straight to hell for associating with these awful people.  Within this setting “Jesus told them this parable about the father and two brothers would have a big impact for both groups in this setting.

II. We read about The Two Brothers in verse 11.
Jesus begins this story by simply saying: “There was a man who had two sons.”  Jesus simply introduces the characters which will communicate his point to His listeners.  The father, as we will see, is loving and very patient, and will do anything for his sons.  The sons, in turn, each disrespect the father, but in two very different ways.  Let’s look briefly at the two brothers for a moment.
We will find out later that the older brother is the good boy who always did what he was supposed to do.  He was clearly a “pleaser” in the family.  When there were chores to be done, he did his chores faithfully and with great diligence.  And he probably always did it without complaining because that is what good sons do.
He had it figured out that the way to get what he wanted was to obey his father.  If you are a good child, then you will end up with the inheritance and a life that is good.  Moreover, as the first born, he knows that if he keeps his nose clean, he’ll end up with double the amount that his younger brother will get when his father dies.
He knew that he wanted what his father had, and he knew that strict obedience was the way to get it.  He doesn’t really enjoy the relationship with his father but wants the stuff that comes with it.  This will become evident when we reach the end of the story.
Then we have the younger brother who said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.”  This son also knows what he wants in his life and wants what he has coming to him.  The problem is that he wants his share now!  He doesn’t want his father, but he too wants the stuff.
The money he asked for was the money he would receive at his father’s death.  And so in a real sense, he was wishing his father to be dead.  One scholar tested this on several people he visited with in various parts of the Middle East.  He asked if anyone in their village had ever asked for their inheritance before the father had died.  The response was always, “Never!”  “Could anyone makes such a request?”  “Impossible!”  “If anyone did, what would happen?”  “His father would beat him, of course!”  “Why?”  “This request means –he wants his father to die!”
Moreover, it soon became apparent that the son wanted his share of money so that he could get away from his father’s values and influence.  His wild lifestyle in a distant country makes it clear that he wanted to get away from his father.  He gathered up all he had because he never intended to come back.
What is often lost at this point is what the father does: “So he divided his property between them.”  Jesus’ listeners must have looked at him with disbelief because a father would never do that!  Again, if a son asked this of a father in the Middle East today, the father would almost certainly respond to such a request by driving the son out of the family with nothing except physical blows.  But this is not what this father does.
This father simple gives his rebellious son what he would have received at his death and lets him go.  This father patiently endures this loss of honor as well as the pain it inflicted.  This father simply bears up under the pain and keeps on loving his sons in spite of their actions.

III. What we see in this part of the parable are Two Approaches to Life that we still see today.
There is first the way of moralism and legalism that is represented by the older brother.  The Pharisees of Jesus’ day knew that they were in a special covenant relationship with God.  They also knew that the way to maintain that relationship, and more to the point, obtain the benefits of the covenant relationship, was strict obedience to the law.  You want a life that is blessed and successful?  Obey the law and it will happen!  What matters most is obedience to God’s law and conformity to human traditions and laws.
We have the descendants of the Pharisees very much alive and well today in our culture.  These are the people who believe conformity to the rules of the land are what makes things good.  The problems in the world are caused by all the immoral people who run around doing their own thing.  If everyone just would behave themselves and do what is right, this world would be just fine!
We have such people in the Christian church as well.  If you want to be a good Christian, obey the rules and the law and God will give you want.  And if you are unsure what is the right thing to do, create more laws and rules to make it clearer so that you don’t have to even think about what is right and wrong.
In my upbringing, you could know if you were a good Christian if you obeyed the following:  Don’t go to movies, drink, play cards and certainly don’t dance!  Never go to the store on Sunday and never work on Sunday or watch TV on Sunday..  Do send your children to Christian schools and always go to church twice on Sunday.  Obey these laws and God will be pleased with you and things will be fine.
Bryan Chapell tells of a church in South America where this is taken to its logical extreme.  Evangelicals are best known in Las Mesetas for their strict observance of rules such as no drinking, no dancing, no drugs and no smoking.  Members are required to tithe their earnings and attend all church services – six or seven nights a week in most churches.  Some churches prohibit men from wearing jeans or shorts.  Most churches do not allow women to wear pants, shorts or short skirts.  They also prohibit women from wearing jewelry, using makeup or cutting their hair.  A number of churches require women to wear head coverings in church.
One woman there said, “My friend told me that I have lost my salvation since I cut my hair.”  This attitude, as Steve Brown would say, “is a lie from the pit of hell and smells like smoke!”
On the other hand we also have the descendants of the younger son as well.  In this view, the world would be a far better place if tradition, hierarchical authority and other barriers to personal freedom were removed.  This person says that the way for him to find happiness is to be an individual.  No one can tell him what is right or wrong. “I’m going to live as I want to live and find true happiness that way.”  They believe that everything will be just fine if everyone could just do their own thing and have everyone else leave them alone.
Tim Keller gives an example of the clash between conformity and individual freedom from the movie “Witness” where a young Amish woman, Rachel, falls in love with a very non-Amish policeman.  Rachel’s father-in-law Eli warns her that such a relationship is forbidden and that the elders could have her punished.  He then adds that she is acting like a child.  Rachel retorts, “I will be the judge of that!”  Eli responds, “No, they will be the judge of that.  And so will I if you shame me.”  She replies, “You shame yourself” and walks away.
So which approach is right?  The point of Jesus’ parable is that both are equally wrong because both are not taking the relationship with their father seriously.  Both approaches are missing that it all hinges on God and what He is doing.  As we watch the story develop, we will always be looking at what the father is doing.  At this point, he allows both sons to have what they believe is the way to their happiness.  However, as we will see, they will both learn that what they are missing is the father’s love.
There are many older brothers and younger brothers today.  Some want to maintain tradition and obedience through righteous living and legalism.  “I will be a good Christian, pray and read my Bible, never swear and help others.”  “I will be a model Christian citizen and God will be so proud of me and bless me!”
Others want to be free spirits and doing what they want to do.  “I can do whatever I want and it doesn’t matter as long as I’m doing what I want to do.”  “The way to find Christian happiness is through what I want.”  Both find that something is missing in their pursuit of happiness.
Many people move back and forth in their approaches to life.  Some act like they are upright and moral but deep within their heart and in their secret lives they are living an indulgent, immoral life, trying to find happiness that way.  Others act very independent but inwardly long for the structure and comfort that rules and obedience bring.  But in these cases as well, they are missing the true answer.
The answer to our needs is the Father.  The Father, who no matter what our attitude is toward Him, gives us what we need and even far more than what we need.  The Father, who when we rebel or disrespect Him, stands there watching, waiting for us to come to our senses and see Him for who He really is.  The Father, who rejoices and throws a huge celebration when His children come to their sense and realize that His love has never stopped in spite of their actions.
So what do we do?  First let’s realize what our tendency is; which brother and which brother’s sin are we more like?  Are you a believer who wants to make sure that you are always doing everything right?  You make sure that you have your 30 minutes or hour of quiet time or you’re afraid God will be upset or angry with you?  You make sure that you always do whatever is the acceptable “Christian” thing to do?
Or are you a believer who knows you are wandering away, pushing the envelope, trying to get away with things you know are wrong.  You rebel against the church or any kind of authority.  You don’t like or want anyone to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do.
What are your tendencies and be honest with yourself.  Then realize that whatever you are doing is likely focused on yourself and what you want.
Then once you realize that, look at the Father’s steadfast love for you no matter what.  He is watching you working so hard being faithful and waiting for you to realize that’s not it.  He is watching you in your rebellion and your independence, waiting as well for you to realize that isn’t it either.
What He is waiting for is for you to look to Him.  He is waiting for you to realize that no matter what you do, His love for you is there regardless.  Whether you have left and have returned, or whether you have been so busy working, the fact is that when He wants to have a party with us.  At the end of the story, it’s not about either of the son’s behavior; it’s about the father’s response.
Robert Farrar Capon writes, “You’re worried about permissiveness- about the way the preaching of grace seems to say it’s okay to do all kinds of terrible things as long as you just walk in afterward and take the free gift of God’s … While you and I may be worried about seeming to give permission, Jesus apparently wasn’t. He wasn’t afraid of giving the prodigal son a kiss instead of a lecture, a party instead of probation; and he proved that by bringing in the elder brother at the end of the story and having him raise pretty much the same objections you do. He’s angry about the party.  He complains that his father is lowering standards and ignoring virtue-that music, dancing, and a fattened calf are, in effect, just so many permissions to break the law.  And to that, Jesus has the father say only one thing: “Cut that out! We’re not playing good boys and bad boys any more. Your brother was dead and he’s alive again. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping.”
Our lives as Christians are about now about resurrection and living in that freedom and God’s grace for us.

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Pastor Jerry Hoek
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