Session 2 You're That Guy

The Familiarity of Luke 15 and the Need to Slow Down

Good to see all of you here this morning on our second session of our conference. I look forward to that this morning. To start out, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come before you this day again, just expecting to hear your word.

Father, preach as we know it will. We're so thankful for the opportunity to hear Peter this morning, and pray God you would give us open and receptive hearts to receive your word that would lay upon us, Father, and change us and renew us, and just even draw us closer to you.

So we just pray that you would bless this time together this morning, Father. May your name be honored and glorified. Pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Please remain standing for the scripture reading this morning from Luke 15, 11 through 19.

And he said, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.

And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs, and he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.

You may be seated.

It was 2008, so that would be two years after we moved to Kentucky. And quickly understand real estate, because living in New York City, many people do nothing.

But rent.

And like my mom, for example, she's in the same apartment that I was brought up in, and in all likelihood, she will never own a house or own a home. She'll rent, and then she'll leave that apartment. That's a very common thing in New York City, because it's common to live in New York City and also not be a millionaire.

So it's not uncommon to rent. So I thought, especially living in New York City and especially being a pastor, I will especially never own property. So I really didn't know anything about home ownership.

And so now I'm in Kentucky, and it's a possibility, and so it's like, okay, well, let's learn about that. And so we were looking around at homes, and I had a friend who was working for a builder at the time, and he said, hey, what if I give you the key to this home on a Wednesday night.

After church? Why don't you just go by?

And he's like, don't worry about it. I'll give you the key. It's a master key. Just go and take your own walkthrough and see if it's something that you would like. And I said, okay, I'll do that. And so I finished our youth night that we had going on at the time.

I was a youth pastor at the time. And I took a walk. I took a drive over there and first pulled up to the wrong house. That's embarrassing when you're trying to get into a home that is occupied with a key.

That's a sure way to get shot. But anyway, so I was doing that, and the Lord spared my life and realized it was the wrong.

Home.

Nobody answered the door. Car in the driveway should have clued me in. But anyway, found the right home and went there. And I'm calling my wife. She's like, what's it like? And I'm the worst. I'm like, it's got walls.

It's got like a floor and everything. It's great. And I'm trying to describe different things, and it is on a slab. So there was no basement. It's a two-car garage. And we're walking around, and she's like, how are the bedrooms?

And I'm like, they're decent. There's two full baths, and just, and she goes, how's the outside? I was like, well, that's the thing. The outside's terrible. She's like, what do you mean it's terrible?

I said, the lawn is like dead. She's like, really? I was like, yeah, it's pretty rough. It's like really yellow.

It's super dry.

And I'm like, and it's weird. The house is on either side. Beautiful lawns. I was like, but this one, it's just like, it's really rough. Like, I'm going to ask, maybe this can like, like we can use this as a bargaining chip and pay less for the home.

I was like, it crunches when I walk on it. It's just really weird. She goes, it crunches when you walk on it? I said, yeah, it's really, she's like, almost like it, like it's like hay or straw. I was like, yeah, it does.

It looks like hay or straw. I was like, it's very odd. It's yellow. It's not green at all. And she just was like, you really don't know, do you? I was like, I don't know. I don't know what I don't know.

And she said, that's, they do, okay, she's like, where do I begin? That's seed and straw. They seed the lawn and they put straw down, and she's speaking slowly, like, like I'm speaking right now, like making sure that she doesn't overwhelm my mind with this concept of they put seed down, see, and that's for the grass.

And then they put straw, also known as hay. I'm just eating it up. Like, this is not condescending to me. This is what I need. And that's how they keep the seed down. And that's how grass grows. This is called grass.

It's grass. And I'm like, oh, but I was fully ready to tell my friend, we love the house, but the lawn's jacked up. Like, I thought, really? This is not good. I don't know if we can take this home. And so I promised you stories of genuine ignorance from the city kid.

That is yet another story of genuine ignorance from the city kid. And there's, there's so many more. There's so many more. So anyway, good to be back with you. Luke 15, we just heard was read to us, particularly the portion verses 11 through 19.

And this is great. I don't know that it's possible to ever say with any amount of certainty that we've wrung every bit of truth and application out of a particular text of scripture. I get a little frustrated when someone, a preacher or a teacher says, oh, there's just so much here.

And it's just so rich. We just don't have the time because implied in that is the only thing he lacks is time,.

Right?

Like if you gave him more time, he would clearly tell you everything, but what would the ticking.

Clock?

And it's like, I think that there's, there's so much depth in scripture.

It's certainly clear.

The Lord certainly is kind to give us minds to understand it. We spoke a little bit yesterday, right? About the perspicuity of the scriptures, that the clarity of scriptures, we don't need a.

Priest.

We don't need a clergyman to understand the scriptures. We can read it in and of ourselves and understand it on our own. Thanks be to God. But Bible conferences are special because one of the things they offer us is the opportunity to slow down just a bit, right?

Spend a decent amount of time looking at a topic or a text. And so there are things that we're not going to catch in a hurry. There are things we're not going to catch even at the pace of a leisurely walk.

We would do well to stop. And that's what we get to do today and tomorrow, which I'm excited to do with you. But oftentimes, especially with familiar portions of scripture, I don't know that we intentionally tune out, but we just think, Oh, I know this.

This is a, these things I've known since my youth. I've known these, I've known this account of scripture for quite some time. I think it's why preaching about Christmas is so difficult to do that around Christmas.

I think if we preached on Christmas in July, it would be a little weird to sing those songs.

Then.

But if we preached on Christmas in July, I might actually have the attention of my people more than when I do it in December because they're expecting it in December. Like, yeah, the nativity thing, the shepherds, the birth, like they're not, not excited about it, but it's just kind of like, Oh, I know this, I know this.

And so familiarity can sometimes breed contempt. And so I'm excited that we get to take some time to dig into what is probably a very familiar portion of scripture. If you've been walking with the Lord for any length of time and get to slow down and look at these things, this is the longest of Jesus's parables of all the parables that we have in scripture.

This is the longest and contains nuances and subtleties and cultural attitudes, all of which are worth our attention so that we can not allegorize, but connect the dots appropriately as to what people would have felt, heard, thought, how they would have interpreted the parable that Jesus is telling them.

The Younger Son's Demand and the Meaning of the Inheritance

So let's pick it up in verse 11. Verse 11 says, and he said, he, Jesus said, there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

Stop.

Okay.

I think many times when we read this parable, we think of it from the perspective of at least this portion of it, we think of it from the perspective of the father, what it must be like to have a child say in the words of Billy Joel, I'm moving out earlier than a parent.

I'm a big Billy Joel fan earlier than a parent thinks is wise or sooner than a father was ready to have his child go. That might scratch the surface with regards to what the father would have felt at the time.

But just barely, you might look at verse 12 and see the young man saying, give me a note that it's awfully rude to say, give me versus may I have, or would you please give me it's presumptuous even to assume he has something coming to him.

But this was a rich man seeing as he had hired servants, seeing as he had a fattened animal that we learned about later to kill at the drop of a hat for a party. This man had some coins, but still it's, it's a bit rude, a bit presumptuous to ask for something that is not yet yours.

I have a friend, fun fact, he's actually from, do I say it right? Bell fountain, we know what I'm talking about. He's from there, but he moved to New York city to go on staff with campus crusade for Christ and he was one of the elders of our last church.

And he had a situation with his father who desired to give his kids a rather large portion of what he had set aside for him to inherit when he died because he wanted to see his son and his daughter-in-law and his grandkids enjoy it.

It was very sweet. It was very kind. They had enabled them to put a down payment on a home in New York city, which is not common, as well as sock a bunch away for the future. The recipients were blessed.

The giver was blessed. Everyone was blessed. It was an all around win.

It was great.

And I think you and I would agree that's a pretty rare occurrence in our culture, in our day and age that someone receives an inheritance early in that way. I don't think there's people in here who'd be like, yeah, I mean, a bunch of us that happened to, that's a pretty rare thing, but what a blessing, what a blessing.

Listen to me. What Jesus said the younger son was doing in asking his father for a share of the inheritance was never, ever done. Rarely would imply that it is sometimes done. This was never done, ever.

Please understand that everyone in Jesus's audience was hearing of this concept for the very first time in their lives ever. So this was not something like, oh yeah, that's rare, but kind of cool. This would, right from the get-go at the beginning of this story that Jesus is telling, the audience would have been completely riveted onto Jesus because they would be like, wait, what?

That's not a thing. That's never done. I mean, the Bible has a lot to say about inheritances of both land and goods, particularly throughout the Old Testament. God gave very clear instructions as to how that should be handled.

Nowhere in your copy of the scriptures is there like an asterisk pointing to a footnote saying, hey, here's how you ask for your share early. Like it's not a thing. Nowhere in God's word do we see that.

Nowhere does it say, here's how I want you to say, gimme. It's just not there. I mean, inheritances were in different sizes and contained different items and land masses and actual money. They would vary from person to person.

But the one thing that they all had in common was that they're dispersed when the person is dead. Only after the father's death could the beneficiary, the son, do whatever he wished with his inheritance.

That was a given. That was assumed. Inheritances might vary from person to person, but the one thing they all have in common is you get it when the person dies. And so not only did Jesus' audience never ever hear of such a thing, this would have been tantamount to the son saying to the father, I wish you were dead.

I mean, can we make like you're dead so I can get what I have coming to me? In essence, you, your presence in my life, your love, your leadership, your provision, your authority, your care, all of that, I have no use for.

I have no value for it. You might as well be dead. In fact, it would be a little better if you were dead because then I could get mine. Can we just make like you're dead so I can get what I have coming to me?

So this was not just a son saying, hey, could I just get that a little early? Hey, could you help me out with a little bit of cash? Hey, here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to go out on my own. And I was wondering if you're going to give me this later, could you give it to me now?

This was highly insulting. This was highly disrespectful. And the people hearing this would have understood not only was this disrespectful, but this was the son essentially writing himself out of the life of his family.

You are worth more to me dead than you are alive. And so I'm not going to kill you. That would be, that would take, that's a whole thing. So can you just give me the money as if you were dead? And so the father would have felt way more than just, wow, the boy's moving on sooner than I thought.

Wow, he's, time flies. I wish he'd stay around a little more. This makes me a little sad. The father would have felt two things. Again, one, I'm as good as dead to my son. In fact, I'm better dead to my son than I'm alive.

And the second thing that we would have thought was, and I'm never going to see him again. I'm never going to see my son again. The son wants what is his and wants to leave and intended to see his dad with about the same frequency as he would have his dad were dead.

And so right there from verse 11, right there in just verses 11 and 12, emotions are already conjured up within the people who are reading this. This isn't like, okay, so then what happened? Right there, there's people who are perplexed.

There's people who are shocked. There's people who don't know where, they already don't know where this story is going because it's, it started out in a way that you never would have imagined possible.

Verse 12, at the end of verse 12, it says, and he divided his property between them, which he couldn't really do. Right? He couldn't really divide up his property between them because he's still using his property, but he, he did his best.

And verse 13, so he's probably, you know, like, sure.

Okay.

Wasn't ready for this. I guess you would get a little bit of this. I guess you would get this, uh, I, the money I could, I guess you would get this. Um, what's the value of the land that I would have given you?

I don't know how I can give you that. So this is like a, a hurried thing, right? This is not, this is not how it was supposed to be. This is not what his father pictured doing as he was like, I'm going to leave an inheritance to my kids.

He did not intend to do it this quickly, but he divided up what he could gave him what.

He could.

And verse 13 says not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country. You see that a journey into a far country in verse 13, that country is also mentioned in verse 14.

That country is also mentioned in verse 15 and that he squandered his property in reckless.

Living.

Not only did he take from his father. He didn't have it long. He would have had to have sold whatever he had at like garage sale prices on the futures market in order to get the cash he needed to live reckless living, reckless living.

It means a lot of things, but I think it at least means one thing that we can get from the text, unfettered, unrestricted, sexual sin, unfettered, unrestricted, sexual sin. If you skip down to verse 30, which we'll look at more tomorrow, Lord willing, but verse 31 of the things that the older son said was when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes.

So that's one of the things that they, he knew that he did. Like he, he, he just basically just squandered all the things that you gave him. And he did it for sex. They did it for sexual sin with, with prostitutes in this far country, unfettered, unrestricted, sexual sin.

And so here he is in this far country, far away from everything that he knew far away from everything that he loved living completely like the devil, completely differently than he was raised to live.

And then wouldn't you know, look at verse 14, verse 14 says, and when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country. And he began to be in need. Let's talk about famines for a minute.

We don't know much about that, but famines were unbelievably scary. Unbelievably scary. Jesus said in verse 14, that this wasn't just a famine, but what a severe famine. There's a qualifier there that Jesus describes it as a famine, but this one was like above.

Average.

This was severe. Things changed rather quickly. People hoarded their stuff. They rationed it for themselves. They couldn't give it away. They wouldn't give any way at all ever. It's the worst time in the world to be in need.

And so this is quite frankly, the worst thing that could happen to the younger brother at this juncture in his earthly life. I mean, surely the famine wasn't the younger brother's fault, right? But given the way the story is being told and given the way that we know the Pharisees think when they, like they think good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.

Like when they ask, you know, who sinned, this boy or his parents, that he would be born with a disability. They automatically assume, yeah, but good things happen to good people and bad things.

Happen to bad people.

And so they would have understood this to be, this is the judgment of God. This is the judgment of God coming down on this land, likely for the people's sins, but surely for this guy's sin. Surely for this guy's sin.

This was the judgment of God for this seemingly irredeemable, unrescuable, irreverent, irresponsible young man. Verse 15 says, so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

Many, if not, most of you are employed, but I'm guessing that little to none of you hired yourself. I mean, you might be self-employed, you might have your own business, but if you're working for somebody else, you typically don't hire yourself.

You're typically hired by somebody. You don't do that. That's like their job, right? They hire you. You don't hire yourself. It's a weird phrasing, but it conveys the idea that the relationship between the younger brother and whoever owned the pig farm was a one-way relationship that the citizen did not initiate himself.

That he didn't have a help wanted sign hanging and he thought, oh, yay, I can do that. I can feed these pigs. But that the, especially during a time of famine, right? Because they're going to cut overhead and they're not going to want to hire somebody.

Else.

And so when it says hired himself in the Greek, the phrase literally means he joined himself. He joined himself. It actually means he united himself with the guy. It's an awkward phrasing. The word can also be understood as he glued himself to this guy.

It would convey the idea of as if he was hanging on him, like, like I'll feed the pigs. I'll feed, what do you need me to do? I can feed the pigs. See how the pigs are eating on their own. How about I feed them?

I got it. You got to help me. You got to hire me. I can do that thing with their, please let me do this. Let me just, let me just do this. Hanging on him, begging him for food, being willing to do anything for food because he's.

Starving.

Verse 16 says no one gave him anything. So this wasn't a real job. This wasn't a real job because he did this, but he still wasn't given payment. And so it's likely that this guy's had like, Hey, hi, I need a, I was wondering if I could work on your, I was wondering if I could work on your farm.

Maybe you could hire me. And maybe if I keep nodding, you'll nod with me. And maybe I can, I can feed the pigs and, and just do the thing that you don't really need me to do, but maybe you can pay me to do.

And the guy's like, yeah, yeah. That would be really just like, yeah, you should do that thing primarily because it's, it would mean you're not hanging on me. So if you could just go, that would be, yeah.

Oh yeah. That would be great. Go feed the pigs just to get him off him, just to get him to get away from him, just to get him to stop begging. But then verse 16 tells us clearly he wasn't ever given anything.

Also in verse 16, it says he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate. Uh, this would have meant that he was likely losing his mind, uh, because things that were completely unappetizing to him were now appetizing to him.

Hmm.

I should eat that.

Hmm.

I bet that would be good. He was likely losing his mind. The effect that severe, unbelievable hunger has on the brain, um, is severe. Uh, it will, it will mess with you. If you're ever in a, uh, in a city, particularly, or you're ever around a homeless population, um, there's a wide variety of reasons why homeless people can sometimes act the way.

That they do.

No question. Um, but hunger is usually one of them. A lack of sleep and hunger is usually key driving forces as to the impact that it had on somebody's mind and how they talk and how they relate. It will impact your mind.

Uh, I was talking to a brother yesterday who has a pig farm. So I'm a little intimidated to talk about this because I'm rarely talking to people who are like, I know pigs better than you did. Um, but here's what I, here's what I think.

I know, uh, pigs eat slop, just slop, uh, leftover food that would have been literally like the most unattractive. You would never be attracted to what a pig would have eaten. They'd be fed rinds and eggshells and husks and corn cobs and corn by itself.

I would argue is hardly digestible. Would evidence by the fact that when you eat corn, right?

Okay.

You're like, did I even chew it? Like it's, it's, it's corn by itself is even hardly digestible.

Let alone the corn cobs.

I think I just added one moment to your life where you will think about Jesus that you typically don't think about Jesus.

You're welcome.

Desperation and hunger is having an impact on his mind. If you're considering eating something that you would have never considered eating in your right mind. Uh, in the Greek, there's a word there for pods.

Uh, that word is a Greek word, which would have referred to what's called carob pods. Carob pods were long string being shaped seed pods with like hard beans inside this tough leathery shell. You can grind it into a powder and use it as a substitute for chocolate.

It's not unusable. You can extract kind of a kind of molasses from it, but that that's about it by itself. Uh, it's inedible by itself. It's indigestible for humans. You can fill yourself with them and you can feel full, but you would have gained nothing from them.

And so while you might feel full, you're still starving. This young man was going to die. Do you understand that he was on death's door? There was nothing that he could have done to save himself. This was the end of the road for him.

It's not just like he was living with the pigs and the pigs were stinky. Aren't pigs stinky? Everybody say, ew, ew, imagine that. Wow. He really needs to go home so he can take a bath. That's not what's happening here.

He was on death's door. Anybody hearing this, I'm convinced anybody hearing Jesus talk about this would understand just how far off this young man had gotten that he was about to die. This was the end.

The Pharisees would have known that. And as they heard Jesus tell the story, they probably would have been like,.

Kind of good riddance, right?

Good riddance. After all he did, after all the shame he brought his father and the shamefully reckless way he spent the inheritance on his own hormones and the famine that was likely brought on by his own sinful ways, get him out of here.

This checks out and makes sense. And so he's going to die, right? Now, there are tons of application points to be drawn from Luke 15. Tons of application points to be drawn from this particular portion of scripture.

We need to love like Jesus loved. No question. We need to love who Jesus loves. No question. When things are lost, but then are found, it's worth celebrating. That's what God does. When somebody comes to him, that's what we should do.

And now we're in a parable that talks not about things, but about people. We're not talking about lost sheep. We're not talking about lost coins. We're talking about a human being made in the image of God.

When people are lost, but then found, we should celebrate as they do in heaven. No question. But listen to me. You can look at the prodigal son and say, because you know how the story ends and say, man, I've got to be more like that dad.

I've got to be more like the father. How forgiving, how kind. And we'll talk about that as well.

That is true.

We could all stand to be like the father. But here's my point. You'll never be more like the father if you don't first see yourself as the younger son. The title of the message is you're that guy. You will never be like the father unless you see yourself as the prodigal himself being symbolic of you.

And so point number one is you're missing the point. If you don't see the prodigal son as symbolic of you, you will miss the greatest point of this parable. If you don't see the younger son as representative of or emblematic of or symbolic of you.

Now we started out in verse 12 and it says the youngest of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. Now when you read this parable and you think of that prodigal son or daughter who is out there living like the devil, or you think of a friend who if they were any further from God, they'd be the devil.

Or you think of a coworker or a group of people or a neighbor or whatever. And you think this is a great reminder that God can even save them.

That is true. That is true.

But you're missing the point if you don't see the prodigal son as symbolic of you. And understand that this is a phenomenal opportunity from God's word to be reminded of how far off I was and would have been had Jesus not rescued me.

You're that guy. I'm that guy. The prodigal is symbolic of every sinner who has ever lived past, present, and future. You say, I don't know, pastor. Like I don't think I've literally, I've literally never done anything remotely close to what this guy has done.

How would this represent me? Well, consider the fact that God doesn't distinguish between sins like we do. Consider the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Consider what your Bible says, and it's in your outline.

1 John 5 and verse 17, all wrongdoing is sin. 1 John 3 and verse 4 says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. Romans 3, Paul tells us in verse 22, for there is no distinction.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. James 2 and verse 10 says, for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. And so your outward history, your life story may not look like this guy's.

I would venture to say likely didn't look like this guy's. It's a very, very different context. It's a very odd situation. He's doing things that were not, you can't say like, yeah, I've done that too.

I've done exactly what he did. But what I'm trying to tell you is it doesn't matter because you're just like him. I'm just like him. And God doesn't distinguish between sins like we do. And the bottom line is that before you were saved, whether you were walking or running, you were headed to a far country.

Do you know that? Before God came into your life, before his sovereign grace impacted you and arrested your heart, you were in your own way on your own headed to a far country. And that's what we read in Luke 15 and verse 13, that not many days later, the son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country.

But in Isaiah 53 and verse six, we read that all we like sheep have what? Gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. First Peter two in verse 25 says, for you were straying like sheep. You see friends, regardless of the circumstances in your life, when you were saved, if you don't see yourself as having been a long way off, friends, here's, what's going to happen.

You're going to lack the humble gratitude for having been saved because you'll tell yourself that you kind of had it coming. I mean, you kind of had it coming, or you think it actually would have been stranger to not be a Christian than to be one given your fill in the blank, your heritage, your morality, your upbringing, your good name, your politics, your phenomenal grades, your hair, your looks, your accomplishments, whatever.

But if you don't have the humble gratitude to realize, wow, when God saved me, his son died just as much for me as it did for this prodigal, regardless of whether I ever actually physically,.

Literally did the things that he did.

I think this, particularly for my own kids, one of the things that I just can't stand hearing, I get it, but I'd have to like kind of calm myself. I have to dial it back before I respond is when somebody says, yeah, my test, I don't really have an exciting testimony.

And that's usually coming from somebody who was raised in a Christian home. Usually they're saying like, yeah, this was kind of like on brand because I'm a Hasbro, I'm a LaRuffa, I'm a whatever because my family is Christian or my family's full of Christians.

So I don't really have an exciting testimony.

And I'm like, you don't have it really?

You don't have an exciting testimony? You weren't literally hell bound and hell deserving, but for the grace of God, you were, I would argue that because my son, for example, came to faith in Christ, it might even be a greater example of the sovereign grace of God at work in his life.

Because when you find somebody who has a tremendously dramatic testimony, who is driving a big rig down the highway at 80 miles an hour while he was drunk and high, and all of a sudden,.

He reckoned God miraculously spared his life.