The Prodigal Son - [Luke 15:11-32]

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You know, probably you'll hear people talk about Jesus Christ as a great man, a great teacher, a great moral person.
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Well, you know what? The truth is, he was a great teacher. And when he taught, when he was really trying to make a singular point, he would use parables.
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He would use stories to explain his points. And parables are a really unique form of communication because they address real -life situations to make, or to address a specific situation.
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He uses real -life situations. But you have to be careful when you're looking at parables and how you interpret them.
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I'll give you an example. Tertullian was one of the early church fathers and a theologian.
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But when he looked at the parable, what's known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he just had a couple things that I want to point out to you.
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First of all, he said that the younger, the prodigal son, was a Christian. And we're going to examine that a little bit this morning.
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But he also said that the citizen of a far country represents the devil. And you can look through all the text and no one will be able to show from Scripture that that citizen of a far country represents the devil.
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So, in other words, people have kind of embellished those things over the years. And to understand the parable, there are just a few, or any parable, there are a few principles that you need to keep in mind.
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First of all, you need to look at the key point that he's addressing.
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The key point. What is Jesus actually trying to teach when he presents a parable?
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And in every single context, he always says, this is what I'm going to teach you, and then he presents the parable.
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And you know, in the same way that Tertullian kind of mangled the text a little bit, people today take the parable of the prodigal son and they use it to teach things that Jesus never intended.
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But as we go through Luke 15 this morning, I want to draw your attention to the hearts or the attitudes.
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Because when we say hearts, we might think of a physical thing, but it's their attitudes that are important. And it's the attitudes of the main players in these parables.
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And also to look at those who heard them. And I want you to look at these attitudes so that you would examine yourselves and make sure that you've got an attitude toward repentant sinners that mirrors that of God the
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Father. We need to have that same attitude toward those who repent, who come to Christ, that our
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Father in Heaven does. And that's the attitude that Jesus was teaching about and that he was trying to correct through this parable.
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Specifically, we're going to look at three sets of hearts. First of all, the frigid hearts of the
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Pharisees and scribes. And when I thought about frigid, I thought, that's perfect. Here we are, minus 10 below.
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But secondly, we're going to look at the forgiving heart of the Father. And thirdly, we're going to look at the flinty hearts of the two sons.
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Flinty meaning hard. First, the frigid hearts of the Pharisees and scribes. Please turn to Luke 15, verse 1.
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Now all the tax gatherers and sinners were coming near him to listen to him.
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And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.
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And he told them this parable, saying, I'm going to hold it right there for a moment. Jesus' main point and the first key to understanding these parables was really the holier -than -thou attitude of the
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Pharisees and scribes. Their frigid hearts. They saw Jesus spending time with sinners, with tax gatherers, and they hated it.
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They could not understand it. They thought it was wrong, and they simply hated it. Now eating with sinners and tax gatherers suggested a level of acceptance that was just far beyond anything that we would understand today, and it was actually distasteful to these scribes and Pharisees.
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They just viewed that as unimaginable, that you would want to actually eat with these people.
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Interestingly, though, in theory, in theory, Judaism at that time, and the
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Pharisees and scribes were Jews, they would have subscribed to a theory that would have held to holding penitents, that is, those who would come to faith, or those who would repent from their sins, in high esteem.
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But their focus was on this rabbinic teaching about the
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God's joy at the fall of the unrighteous.
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Let me just read this quick quote here. But just as it is a delight before the omnipresent to see the strengthening of the righteous, so it is a joy before the omnipresent, or God, to see the downfall of the wicked.
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In other words, God rejoiced in seeing the wicked go down. And as it is said, when the wicked perish, there is rejoicing.
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There's nothing in there about the rejoicing when people turn around, when they would come to their senses, when they would stop sinning and become righteous.
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The Pharisees and the scribes had decided to focus on the destruction of the wicked.
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That was their heart, that's what they delighted in, instead of redemption, instead of seeing people repent.
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First of all, who were the Pharisees and scribes? The Pharisees were members of an ancient
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Jewish religious group who followed the oral law in addition to the Torah, and attempted of the five books of Moses, and attempted to live in a state of constant purity.
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Well, as I shared when I gave my testimony yesterday morning, trying to live in a state of constant purity is a losing battle.
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When you get up in the morning, you might not have a sinful thought, but do you have a holy thought? Being perfectly holy in all your conduct is absolutely commanded.
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We're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Do we do that?
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Every moment of every day, are we perfectly holy? Are we perfectly loving God as we should?
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It's not just the sins we commit, but that's what they reduced it to. They had reduced it to just follow these set of rules, and you'll be okay.
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The scribes were specialists in the law. They just studied the law. That was their whole thing.
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And I guess you could call them lawyers. That was their specialty. So Jesus was constantly battling against these legalists and these lawyers, and their false standards.
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They're saying, you know, if you just do this, this, this, and this, and this, then you'll be okay. And he constantly fought against that because it's not a matter of outward appearance.
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It's not a matter of following a set of rules. It's a matter of having a right relationship with the
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God of this universe. They had a great deal of antagonism. They weren't neutral towards Jesus Christ at all.
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They didn't ignore him. They would follow him around because they had a lot of antagonism, a lot of antipathy, a lot of anger toward Jesus.
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Nevertheless, the construction of verse 1 tells us that the tax gatherers tells us, or it tells us about the tax gatherers and the sinners, that they were in the habit of coming to hear
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Jesus talk. And you know what? The scribes and Pharisees also came to hear Jesus talk quite frequently, but for different reasons.
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The scribes and the Pharisees didn't come to hear the truth. Their hope, why did they come to listen to him?
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Their hope was to catch him in something that he said wrong. Their hope was to catch him slipping up a little bit so that they could embarrass him, so that they could discredit his ministry, so that they could stand in judgment of him.
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So why did they want to discredit him? Because they needed to protect their own power base.
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They needed to protect their own standards of righteousness. They needed to protect their way of living, and he was constantly undercutting them by saying, listen, it's not what's outside that counts, it's what's inside.
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So what was their standard of righteousness? I've already kind of alluded to it, but I'll just kind of define it a little further.
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First, it was an illusion. It was entirely external. It was smoke and mirrors.
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In Luke chapter 12, verse 1, and you don't have to turn there, I'll just read it. Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of the multitude had gathered together, that they were stepping on one another, so they're just falling over one another,
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Jesus began to say to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leaven of the
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Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. They were hypocrites. Their righteousness was an illusion.
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They were hypocrites. Secondly, their righteousness was insufficient.
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It was not only an illusion, it was not only false, but it was also insufficient. It could not get them into heaven.
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Matthew 5 .20 says, Jesus says this, For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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In the prior chapter of Luke, Jesus had challenged their legalism, and he explained what it means to be a true disciple of Christ.
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He explained what it meant to be saved. Nevertheless, of course, they did not repent at that point.
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But they were grumbling. They were grumbling because Jesus was receiving these sinners and eating with them.
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And the question, of course, comes about why were they grumbling? What was the big problem? Who cared if Jesus ate with them?
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Other than the fact that they considered these people unclear or unclean. And this is the second important aspect of understanding the parable.
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Understanding the culture in which it's told. In our culture, we wouldn't just invite anybody to come over to our house for dinner, although the
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Zooks did that last night, and it was very kind of them. But we wouldn't just invite anyone over because we just wouldn't do that.
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We don't know these people. But in that culture, dinner goes a lot further, or sharing a meal goes a lot further than it does here.
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For Jesus to eat with the sinners and tax gatherers, with the social outcasts of Israel, was to honor them, to bestow some kind of honor on them.
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And that really angered the Pharisees and scribes. Now, here was somebody in Jesus who constantly berated them, was constantly correcting their theology, was constantly correcting their whole way of thinking, and he had the nerve to eat with these tax gatherers and sinners, these, as we would call it today, these lowlifes.
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Who is Jesus to tell us what to do when he's eating with those kind of people? The tax gatherers were considered basically the lowest form of Jew because they were traitors to their people.
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To be a tax gatherer, as you might know, you had to buy like a franchise from Rome.
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And that allowed you to set up shop and to collect taxes from your own people. And the Jews just couldn't understand that.
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And to the Pharisees and the scribes, those people were lost, and there was absolutely no hope for them.
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Sinners is a general term, and it just means they were people with bad reputations, people who did not even try to live up to the legalistic standards that the
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Pharisees had set up. So for Jesus to talk and associate with this rabble, that was bad enough.
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But to actually eat with them, to sit down and eat with them, and to bestow on them the honor of a rabbi or a teacher or someone who had a big following actually sitting down with these people, that was just too much for them to take.
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Now notice also it says that Jesus is said to receive these sinners. The Greek verb there implies that he hosted them.
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He welcomed them. It implies an attitude of acceptance. So the
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Pharisees wanted to show up Jesus because he did not conform to their thought pattern, to their way of living, to their standards.
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They had created this intricate web of rules to prove their own righteousness, and they weren't just having anything to do with Jesus' way of dealing with these people, with these outcasts.
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The hearts of the Pharisees were frigid. They were darkened and dead. They didn't have any good news whatsoever.
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The Pharisees had no love for the lost. And in fact, Jesus describes their spiritual condition in Matthew 23, verses 13 to 15.
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And he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, even while, for a pretense, you make long prayers.
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Therefore you shall receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
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And that's the kind of snowball effect that legalism has. You know, how am I going to be more righteous than the person who taught me?
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I'm going to add more rules, and the next person who comes after me is going to add more rules, and on and on and on it goes.
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But Jesus said that they were roadblocks. He says, look, you guys are actually blocking the road into heaven.
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You aren't helping people into heaven. You're a stumbling block to them. And you're robbers.
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You're stealing from people who can't afford to lose it. You're devouring widows' houses. You're rogues.
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You're ne 'er -do -wells. You make people twice the son of hell as you are yourselves.
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So Jesus tells these parables, these three parables that we're going to look at, the two more quickly than the last one, the first two more quickly than the last one, in order that he might reveal the frigid heart of the
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Pharisees and scribes and how they are at odds with the forgiving heart of the
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Father. So let's go ahead and look at the forgiving heart of the Father. Let's look at verse 4.
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This is known as the parable of the lost sheep. Verse 4. What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety -nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?
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And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them,
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Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I tell you that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety -nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
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As in many of the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees, Jesus' words are carefully chosen.
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Now, the Pharisees might have been offended by his use of the example of a shepherd. That sounds a little bit funny, even though shepherds,
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I mean, historically, Moses was a shepherd, so they should have thought it was a good thing. Nevertheless, well, and in fact, even
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God himself, Psalm 23, the great shepherd. So God uses that image of a shepherd. Nevertheless, as they did with so many things, the
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Pharisees had taken that image of a shepherd and made it an unclean thing. Why? Because the shepherds were out there getting dirty with the sheep, laying down the dirt with them, protecting them.
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So they actually considered shepherds to be unclean. So when Jesus starts the parable with the words,
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What man among you is already rough with their feathers? They wouldn't want to be a shepherd.
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That would hold no interest for them. They would consider that distasteful. They would consider that unholy, unclean. So there was also the likelihood of them being offended just because of the reference to shepherds in Ezekiel 34, verse 2.
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And I'll just read that. Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.
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And they were the shepherds of Israel, or they were supposed to be. They were the religious leaders of Israel.
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Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds,
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Thus says the Lord God, Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves.
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Should not the shepherds feed the flock? That was their job. And they rightfully would have been offended because they should have been feeding the flock, and they weren't.
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They were just taking care of themselves and setting up standards that nobody could live out. If he wanted to be sensitive to their needs, if the
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Lord wanted to be sensitive to the Pharisees, he might have started the parable along these lines. What man among you, owning one hundred sheep, if he heard his hireling had lost one, would not summon the shepherd and demand that he go out and find the lost sheep?
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But that's not what Jesus does at all. He doesn't set him up as the owner, demanding to know why this shepherd had lost one sheep, because he was the one who was offended.
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He was God incarnate, looking at these so -called shepherds who were not taking care of the flock, and he was addressing that exact issue, their lack of compassion for the lost.
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So it would be highly, highly unlikely that a shepherd would actually own, a single shepherd would own a hundred sheep.
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Just to give you this picture here, one who owned that many would be quite rich. So probably what we're looking at here is a flock of a hundred sheep owned by several families with several shepherds.
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So if a family owned, say, five to fifteen sheep, and one of them was lost, that would be a serious economic loss and something that would have to be addressed right away.
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And what would happen is, those ninety -nine sheep would go with the other shepherds into the city, while the one shepherd who was responsible would go out and find him.
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Now I want to point out one very important thing, because people tend to overanalyze these parables and try to make a one -to -one correspondence, just like Tertullian did.
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Note that our text tells us that the shepherd has one hundred sheep and has lost one.
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So people want to turn God into a one -for -one thing with the shepherd. God doesn't lose sheep.
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God doesn't lose sheep. Again, you can overanalyze these things. The point is not
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God is the shepherd. The point is the shepherd's heart after he recovers the sheep.
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But because of how close everything was there, how close these families would have been, how close the community was when they would have found this lost sheep, there would have been great joy, great joy, when that sheep was recovered.
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Now the most remarkable thing, really to me, about this whole story is that when he finds the sheep, when the shepherd finds the sheep, he rejoices.
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Now we think, well, why would that be so great? He found the lost sheep. That should be wonderful. Well, here's the problem.
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The problem is once a sheep becomes separated and realizes it's lost, the sheep will just lay down and won't move.
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So you've got a problem there. He will not move until he rejoins the whole flock.
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So the shepherd must lift him up and put him on his shoulders and carry him however far the sheep has wandered from the flock all the way back to the village.
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But the shepherd receives this with great joy, lugging this tired, immobile animal to his village.
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The text says he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. So our shepherd in this receives this burden of restoring the lost sheep of the flock with great joy.
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And that is the picture right there. That is the picture of God the Father. So Jesus finally delivers the punchline.
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He says there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner, one sinner, who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.
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The Pharisees, as I said before, had no interest in seeing sinners repent.
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They were the ones, they considered themselves the 99 righteous persons who didn't need to repent. And Jesus says, listen, there's no joy in heaven over you.
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There's more over one of these, one of these people that you consider social outcasts, totally untouchable.
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There's more joy when one of these repents than for all of your 99 people's righteousness, your 99 righteousnesses.
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The Lord's message was that God delights in seeing sinners repent. And that was something that the
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Pharisees and scribes did not do. Now if a human shepherd, as we have this picture in here, will rejoice when he finds that one shepherd, how much more will
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God himself rejoice when that lost sheep is found? Because good teaching is in part repetition, and Jesus being the master teacher, he kind of repeats the same theme in verses eight through ten, the parable of the lost coin.
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Let's look at that, verse eight. Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
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And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which
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I had lost. In the same way, I tell you, there is great joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
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Her diligence, this woman's diligence, is motivated because the value of it is literally one -tenth of what she had.
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And she also had a near certainty of finding it because she lost it inside of her house. But what's the key? The key is the diligence.
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Because those homes weren't like ours today. They didn't have a lot of light. In fact, they had almost no light.
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It was whatever crack you might have in your wall plus whatever you supplied by way of candle power.
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So she diligently searches her entire house until she finds it. In both of these parables, the lost sheep and the lost coin, we see the effort that God puts forth to find and to redeem sinners.
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Jesus' point is that if God himself rejoices over even one sinner who repents, shouldn't the
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Pharisees be doing everything in their power to see sinners reclaimed? Shouldn't they be out there evangelizing, seeking the lost, looking for that lost sheep, trying to find that lost coin?
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Why? Because they should have the heart of the Father. They should be identifying with Him. Instead, they did nothing but keep scorn upon those who were sinners, who were social outcasts.
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So here we see the pure contrast, the clear contrast between the frigid heart of the
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Pharisees and scribes and the forgiving heart of the Father. Spurgeon said this, angels sing over sinners that repent because they know that that poor, or what that poor sinner has escaped.
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You and I can never imagine all the depths of hell. And that exactly should have been the attitude of the
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Pharisees. Just wanting to know that these people, these lost outcasts, these tax gatherers, these other sinners, had escaped the terrors of hell.
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But that wasn't them at all. So finally, let's look at point number three, the flinty hearts of the two sons.
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The first son, which I've thought carefully about and decided to entitle the prodigal son, and that's what
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I call him, and the second one I'll refer to as the perfect son. But this parable really isn't about the prodigal son.
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It's not, because once we understand the focus of Jesus' teaching, the main part is, although the two sons are clearly presented, the main focus of it is the love of the
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Father, the forgiving heart of the Father. And that's the main point of all these three parables and why he teaches them in order like this.
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Now please note, again, that there is not a direct correspondence between the
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Father and heaven. And he's not, there just isn't a direct correspondence.
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Although he certainly portrays the love of God towards sinners and his actions towards his sons.
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Let's read the text. Starting in verse 11, I'm going to break it up because it's really long. I'm going to break it up into different sections.
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Verse 11, And he said, Jesus said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to the father,
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Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. And he divided his wealth between them.
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And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country.
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And there he squandered his estate with loose living. Of course, the dictionary defines prodigal as someone who's a spendthrift or extravagant to a degree, bordering on recklessness.
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But you know what? The truth of this parable is far worse. When the younger son asked his father that he receive his share of the estate, he's entitled to one -third of it because he's the younger son.
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The older son would get two -thirds. But when he asks him for it, he breaks every rule of Jewish culture because it's similar.
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He might as well have just said, You know what, Dad? I wish you were dead. I just wish you'd die.
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Because that's the kind of insult it was to his father. So it's an amazing picture of the grace of God, even that he agrees to this demand, that the father agrees to this demand.
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The son is absolutely determined, determined to have his way, and so the father agrees.
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And to just amplify on what an insult this is, you could search throughout all of ancient
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Near East literature, and you will never find any request that's even close to this. This is a grievous insult to the son's father.
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Nevertheless, the son is determined to throw off the shackles of his father, to go out and live his own life, to do his own thing.
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And our text tells us that he leaves himself no safety net whatsoever.
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Verse 13 says he gathered everything together. And the verb implies, when it talks about gathering everything together, it implies that he sold everything and took the cash.
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So he insults his father, he gets his estate, he sells it for cash, and he's on his merry way.
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Now, after an unspecified time, he's spent it all. He's just dead broke.
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Let's look at verse 14. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be in need.
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And he went and attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
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And he was longing to fill his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him.
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Now, we're not told if he had any plan for this eventuality, but it sure doesn't seem like it.
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And I think I've talked to enough people over the course of my life and my career to know that a lot of people live like this.
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You know, what's the old saying? In fact, it's from the Old Testament, eat, drink, and be merry. But they go on, you know, for tomorrow we die, and it's without a care in the world.
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They have no thought for tomorrow. But this young man becomes so desperate after he's spent and squandered everything that he has to stoop for caring for pigs.
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Feeding animals, feeding any animal, would be considered a low station of life for a
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Jew, but to feed pigs, you just couldn't go any lower. In fact, there was a popular
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Jewish saying at the time, May a curse come upon the man who cares for swine.
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And that's how low he had gone. Now, the son finally comes to his senses, verse 17.
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But when he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger?
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I will get up and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.
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I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men.
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Now, this is the moment that every single saved person can identify with. This moment when you just see your own wretchedness and you just long to just throw yourself on the grace of God.
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The Greek verb for repent is nowhere in this passage. Even though it's kind of ironic because the coin and the sheep couldn't repent and the verb is in there in reference to the joy that God has over one who repents.
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But the verb isn't in this one, even though we have a person here who could repent. But the picture of repentance couldn't be more clear.
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But if I could just offer one caution, this parable is often used to show somebody's ability to come to repentance on their own.
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And again, if we just keep in mind that the context of this, Jesus isn't showing, you know what, somebody asked him a question about how you can repent.
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And so he says, let me tell you how people repent. It's like this. That's not his point. His point, again, is on the love and the forgiveness that our
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Father in heaven has for those who repent. He's contrasting the frigid hearts of the
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Pharisees with the forgiving heart of the Father. So the son who finally comes to his senses is willing to be treated as one of his father's hired men.
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And that is below the status of a full -time servant. He's kind of like a seasonal employee, and he says, you know what,
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I'll do that. I'll be a day laborer. I just don't care. Anything is better than what
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I'm living through right now. So what we're watching is a transformation, a complete change in this man's attitude, this young man's attitude, from one who demanded his freedom, wanted to live life on his own terms, to one who is willing to submit his will to the
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Father and to get whatever the Father will give him. Notice also that the prodigal doesn't say, you know what,
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I've got a disease. I've made a mistake. It was other people who led me astray.
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That's not what he does. He doesn't claim to be a victim of anything. He doesn't blame shift. He just says,
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I've sinned. And he says, I haven't just sinned against my father. I've sinned against heaven.
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And heaven, of course, is just a Jewish way of expressing God, a polite way of saying he sinned against God.
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And these aren't just empty words. He's not just saying this and then not going to do anything about it. The prodigal son actually goes home to face the music.
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Look at verse 20. And he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
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And 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.
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But the father said to his slave, Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him.
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And put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fatted calf. Kill it and let us eat and be merry.
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For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again.
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He was lost and has been found. And they began to be merry. The son was hungry.
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He was broke. He had lost all of his pride. It was shattered. One cannot find a greater picture of penitence, of repentance in all of Scripture.
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But note the actions of the father. Before the son had even arrived, he felt compassion for him.
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He knew at least in general that his son was coming home and he could see the wretched status of his son.
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And he felt compassion. His heart broke for him. And the nearer his son got, the worse he must have looked.
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But notice also that he ran to him. The father runs to him. What's the significance of that? That is a complete violation of propriety in that culture.
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For an older man like that to run is just an unthinkable thing. But his excitement was just so overwhelming.
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His son, who had been lost, had come home. He embraces his son and kisses him.
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He doesn't wait for the apology. He has already, in essence, forgiven his son.
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The prodigal makes good on his promised confession, but really the text doesn't even show us that he's able to finish it.
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He never says, Make me as one of your hired men. Why? Because the father is just too busy taking action on his behalf.
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He says he tells his servant to put the robe and the ring and the sandals on. The robe was a status symbol and it was saved.
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He says, Bring out the best robe. And this was saved for special guests, for just guests worthy of special honor.
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The ring is likely some kind of signet ring that shows authority. So he's restoring to him all the authority he had before.
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The sandals are to show that he's not a slave nor even a servant, but a free man.
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He came willing to be a hired man, to be a day laborer, to take the worst possible conditions, and his father has restored him completely.
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Finally, he ordered the slaughter of the fatted calf. And that was reserved for very special occasions.
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And it's an indication that the father cannot imagine a more significant moment ever than what has just taken place.
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So the prodigal son is completely restored. The father now paints a word picture for us and the reality of that salvation in verse 24.
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For the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and has been found.
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See the contrast in this. He was dead and now he's come to life. He was lost and has been found.
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And this verse has taken on a special meaning for me and I'm just choked up even thinking about it. And I've written it in the front of my
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Bible, Luke 15, 24, because there's no verse that I would rather see become a reality in my own life.
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Because my son, Stephen, who made a profession of faith and whose life we saw change so dramatically a few years ago, in fact, he sent an email to my daughter a couple of years ago where he outlined all the changes that Christ had made in his life, how he had no hope and then he did, how all of his desires changed.
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But you know what? That email ends with, but I don't believe those things anymore. And so Luke 15, 24, there's just nothing more that I want than for that to become a reality in my own life because it breaks my heart to talk to him now and to hear him basically telling me, you know what
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I'm doing, Dad, these days? If we could put it back in this parable, he'd say, I'm feeding carob pods to swine.
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That's how he's living his life. In contrast to the forgiving heart of the
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Father and his compassion and his zeal to see his son who's been dead to him, the forgiving heart of the
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Father, we've already seen the frigid heart of the Pharisees and scribes. We've seen the first flinty heart and we've seen that heart removed and we've seen it replaced with a heart of flesh.
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But let's look at the second flinty heart, the perfect son. Now just imagine for a moment, in a children's
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Sunday school class, the teacher asking, do you think there was anybody sorry that the prodigal son came home?
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And one of the children raises his hand and says, yeah, I think the fatted calf was sorry that the prodigal son came home.
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Well, you know what? Sadly, there's somebody else who's sorry too and we're about to read about him. Verse 25.
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Now his older son was in the field and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
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And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things might be. And he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.
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But he, the perfect older son, became angry and was not willing to go in and his father came out and began entreating him.
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But he answered and said to his father, look, for so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a commandment of yours.
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And yet you have never given me a kid that I might be married with my friends. And when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you killed the fattened calf for him.
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The older son comes back from his work and is no doubt surprised by the unscheduled party that's taking place.
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But instead of rejoicing when he hears that great news like his father did, he turns angry and even challenges his father and insults him.
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Were there earlier clues? Well, yes, culturally there were. In verse 12 we read, the younger son said to his father,
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Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. Now, as I said, this is a great insult and what should have happened is, the older son should have acted as an intermediary and should have resolved this, should have smoothed it over, should have made it right right there, should have become involved, but he didn't do that.
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So there was already some anger, some antipathy, some resentment between the two sons even before this takes place.
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But our text also tells us that the father did do that and because of the cultures that he did divide and did give the prodigal son his money and because of the culture again, instead of receiving the one third, he would have received even less than that because he received it early.
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So there would have been even more on the father's death for the perfect son. So maybe he was motivated a little bit by greed, not to intervene.
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We don't know, the text doesn't tell us. But the father, after the older son's reaction, the perfect son, as I call him, why?
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Because he says he's perfect. The perfect son's response, the father would have had every right to be angry with him because the older son would have been expected to be the host to kind of facilitate this whole party.
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If the father said there was a party, it was the older son's job to make it happen. But he didn't do that.
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Yet instead of anger, the father showed compassion on him as well. He urges his son, he comes out and meets him and urges him to do the right thing.
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But this perfect son actually tells his father about it, tells him how good he is, and really begins a form of whining.
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His professed obedience sounds like slavery. Listen again. For so many years
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I have been serving you. It's as if he has absolutely no idea that he has a duty or an obligation to serve his father.
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And the elder son takes it even further, the self -righteousness involved here.
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I have never neglected a command of yours. Now who does that sound like? That's exactly like the
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Pharisees. We keep the commandments. We are good, not like those other people that you're hanging around with,
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Jesus. And the son's even willing to resort to unproven charges. He kind of responds or he reacts with his anger, but he also just makes stuff up.
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There's nothing in the text to substantiate the idea that the younger son spent some of his inheritance on parlatory.
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You could certainly draw that conclusion, but there's nothing in the text. He just kind of makes it up. And he certainly wouldn't know because he hadn't talked to him yet.
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But again, the forgiving heart of the father is displayed. Look at verses 31 and 32.
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And he said to him, My child, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.
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But we had to be merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.
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The father had every right to berate his son for selfishness. Instead, he uses a term of endearment and tenderness in the
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Greek, and he calls him my child. The father gives his perfect son a clear explanation of why he should be joyful.
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Your brother has been restored to us. He has been brought back from the dead. Not the literal dead, but a spiritual death.
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In these parables, in each of these parables, Jesus has kind of raised the stake each and every time.
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First it was a lost sheep, then a lost coin, and finally he gave us the parable of these two lost sons.
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And by demonstrating the forgiving attitude of God, the forgiving attitude of the father towards sinners, and contrasting those with the attitudes of the
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Pharisees, Jesus had shown the actual ungodliness, the sin that was in their hearts.
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And with some measure of subtlety, he had actually, by telling these stories, he had shown how far they were from this
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God that they professed to worship. So this morning I would just ask you, what's the state of your heart?
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Do you have that attitude, that forgiving attitude of the father? Are there people that you'd rather not associate with because of the things that they do?
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Or are you willing to put yourself out, meet with them, and express the forgiving heart of the father to them?
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You know, there is absolutely no greater joy for any Christian than to see someone who is lost be found, than to hear the testimonies of those who have been saved, who have been literally snatched from the pit of hell.
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Fulfilling the Great Commission, just going forth and telling people about forgiveness of sin, is not an obligation.
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It's one of the greatest joys we have, because you know what? Some people eventually are going to be saved.
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We might witness to a thousand people before one person gets saved, but when that happens, your joy is going to be unimaginable.
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And you know what? The joy in heaven is going to be unimaginable. We're not talking about shoveling snow, we're talking about the salvation of souls.
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This isn't drudgery, this is joy. There may be some here this morning that identify with the prodigal son, who are thinking that maybe they've squandered their inheritance, that know that they're not right with God.
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Maybe they're not feeding carob pods to the swine, but maybe they're struggling. Not just struggling to make ends meet, but struggling with their lives, struggling with their sin.
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And I am here this morning to tell you that there is forgiveness with God. There is forgiveness with God.
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He longs to forgive. And He will forgive those who repent and come to Him. Salvation is a modern miracle, and a miracle is something that only
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God can do. God has to change the hearts. But I pray that God would change the hearts of many, as they hear
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His word, even from Bethlehem Bible Church and those who are here this morning. Only God can seek and find the lost, but He's counting on you to present the gospel to them.
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Spurgeon said about sinners, because he knew that he had unregenerate people in his congregation, he said this, and maybe this applies to some of you this morning.
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He said, some of you have been among the thoughtful, in other words, pondering the claims of Christ, quite long enough.
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It is time you passed into a more practical stage. It is high time that you came to action.
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It would have been better if you acted already. For, in the matter of reconciliation to God, first thoughts are best.
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When a man's life hangs on a thread, and hell is just before him, his path is clear.
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And his second thought is superfluous. The first impulse to escape from danger and lay hold on Christ is that which you would be wise to follow.
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Some of you whom I now address have been thinking and thinking and thinking till I fear that you will think yourselves into perdition.
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May you, by divine grace, be turned from thinking to believing, or else your thoughts will become the undying worm of your torment.
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And I pray if there's anyone here today who's been thinking and thinking and thinking that today would be the day of repentance and salvation.
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Again, I would just urge each of us to think about the joy that the Father gets from even one soul that repents.
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That we not have the frigid hearts of the Pharisees, those who are afraid of rejection, those who are afraid to put themselves out and to be embarrassed when the person says,
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I don't believe in that, or that's nonsense. We're called to do that. We need to instead anticipate the joy that the forgiving heart of the
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Father gets when that one person is restored. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, what a blessing it is to know you and to share that knowledge and that joy with so many here this morning.
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Father, I pray that if there's anything that would motivate us to preach the gospel to others, that it would be that we know how much you rejoice over the salvation of even one soul.
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Lord, I pray that we would be those who would go out and just preach and preach and preach, that you might be glorified, that you might have joy, and that we might receive just your praise for being good and faithful servants.
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You don't call us, Father, to never be embarrassed. You call us to be willing to even lay down our lives for you.
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Lord, I also pray that if there are any here who don't know you for whatever reason, that you would even this morning call them to yourself, that you would take out that flimsy heart,
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Lord, and give them a heart of flesh, a heart that would know you, a heart that would rejoice in you, a heart that would repent and confess and seek you,
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Father, that they might be found. Father, we just thank you so much for your word, for your teaching even in this parable, for the clear way you present the gospel, for the clear way you present your heart,
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Father. In your precious Son's name we pray this morning. Jesus Christ, amen.