Sinners love pictures of grace. I love thinking about the pictures
of grace in the scriptures. And they are there, aren't they?
Adam and Eve were recipients of the grace of God in the garden. Abel was a recipient of the grace
of God. Noah, in the midst of that generation,
Noah found grace. in the sight of God. Noah found
grace in the sight of God. It's a glorious, glorious thing,
isn't it, that the Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth. He's full of grace and truth.
And grace and truth comes by the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
just wanted us to, as we begin our, before we look into John's
gospel, to just think about some of the extraordinary parables
and the extraordinary actions of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
was almost as if he wanted to tell stories that would offend
the people who thought they had some righteousness of their own.
But in doing so, what he wanted to do was to sinners, was to
reveal who he is. And that's what our verse Christ
has declared Him. He explains who God is and He
explains who God is by the way He behaves and by the things
He does and what He does, particularly on the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I wonder if John writes simply
he wants the believers to keep believing. He wants believers
to see the Lord Jesus Christ and he wants believers to keep
believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I thought one of the most
extraordinary stories of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
is in the parable of the lost son, the parable of the prodigal
son as it's called. It's in Luke chapter 15, so why
don't we just read it so that we get a picture of how God saves
sinners and how he brings his people back to himself. Sinners love to hear of the grace
of God. I remember when the Lord first
began a work in me 20 odd years ago, it was a grace. I just couldn't
believe that God would be gracious to someone who had spurned him
so willingly and willfully and wickedly for so long. But here's
a parable for us. Luke chapter 15 verse 11, and
a certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said
to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth
to me. And he divided unto them his
living. Basically, the son was saying,
I wish you were dead, and I can claim your inheritance for myself
now. That's how we treat people. And not many days after, the
youngest son gathered all together and he took his journey into
a far country. And there wasted his substance
on riotous living. And when he had spent all, there
arose a mighty famine in that land and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself
to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his field
to feed swine. And for a Jew, you might recall
how terribly, terribly offensive that was to have anything to
do with pigs in any way at all. He would fain have filled his
body with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave
unto him. And when he came to himself,
he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough
and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to
my Father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee. He got the right order of sinning,
didn't he? That all sins are sins against
God, first and foremost. As much as they are horrible
for what we do to our brothers and sisters in Adam in this world,
"'I have sinned against heaven and before thee, "'and I am no
more worthy to be called thy son. "'Make me as one of thy
hard servants.' "'And he arose and came to his father, "'and
when he was yet a great way off, "'his father saw him and had
compassion, "'and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. "'And
the son said unto him, "'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and in thy sight, "'and am no more worthy to be called thy
son. I'm sorry, I think I missed a
verse. And he arose, verse 20, this is the most important verse
in the whole parable, I'm sorry. And he arose and came to his
father, and when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and
had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. What
would this young man have smelled? And yet, the father, where was
the father? The father was looking. The father,
it's the one time in the scriptures where we have any indication
of God doing anything in a hurry. Isn't that lovely? He ran to
him, he ran to him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck
and he kissed him. this son. And the son said unto
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and
no more worthy to be called your son, thy son. But the father
said to his servants, the father ignored, ignored the pleas. Bring forth, verse 22, bring
forth the best robe. The best robe, of course, is
the robe of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
robe that he wove 23 years of living before God with absolute
perfection, in heart and mind and soul, in everything He did,
He perfectly obeyed His Father. He says, I always do what pleases
the Father. I come to do Thy will, O my God. That's the robe of righteousness. And put it on Him. Don't get
Him to put it on Himself. You just put it on Him. You just
put it on him. You cover that smell. You cover
that filth. You cover that degradation. You
cover him. Put it on him. You put it on
him. And then you put a ring on his
hand. A ring is the sign of the eternal covenant. It's the sign
of a covenant that is an eternal covenant. It's a sign of a marriage
covenant between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. Why was
this young man brought back? The Lord Jesus Christ will not
lose one of his sheep. He was brought back by a sovereign
hand of a gracious God, brought back into his father's arms.
You put a ring on his hand. You remind him that he is here
and he's my son. He's my son eternally. He's my son under a covenant
agreement. He's my son forever. And you put shoes on his feet.
You put shoes that represent the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that his walk in this world is now a walk in shoes
that we put on him. And you bring hither the fatted
calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this my son
was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and
they began to be merry. There is rejoicing, isn't there?
The gospel is a cause for rejoicing, and the reason the gospel is
a cause for rejoicing, because it's good news. It's not good
advice about what you have to do, it's good news about who
God is, and it's good news about what God does. And then we have
the sad part of the story. Now his eldest son was in the
field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music
and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what
these things meant. And he said unto him, thy brother
is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because
he has received him safe and sound. And he was angry. and would not go in. Therefore
the father, therefore came out, came his father out and entreated
him, pleaded with him, and he answered and said to his father,
Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I
at any time. And yet thou never gavest me
a kid that I might make merry with my friends." There were
plenty of kids available for him at any time he wanted to
make merry with his friends. But as soon as this thy son was
come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast
killed for him the fatted calf. And he said to him, Son, thou
art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet,
it was right, it was appropriate that we should make merry and
be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again,
and was lost, and is found. They rejoice in what the Father
rejoices in. It's a sad, sad thing, isn't
it? long long ago it was done, it
was finished, that God looks to his Son in His Son perfect, perfect satisfaction. And God's children are satisfied
where God is satisfied. Grace offends people who have
something of themselves to bring to the equation of their salvation. Sinners have absolutely nothing.
Turn back in your Scriptures while you're in Luke's Gospel
to Luke chapter 4. We are going to be looking later
on at the Lord Jesus Christ being full of grace and truth and the
law given by Moses and grace and truth. It is the contrasting
of the two covenants that are the covenants that allow us to
unfold all of the scriptures. Unless we see the eternal covenant,
we won't understand salvation according to the scriptures.
And unless we see the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works
and a covenant that works wrath and a covenant that binds people,
we'll never know the freedom. You'll know the truth, says the
Lord Jesus Christ, When the Lord Jesus came to Nazareth,
here we have in Luke chapter four, beginning in verse 14, we have
an extraordinary picture of a church service. Imagine all of these people turned
up, they got dressed that morning, they came along to church, they
came along to church to worship God, they came along to church
to read the scriptures, to hear about church service this is? It's
a church service that ended up in a murder. An attempted murder,
isn't it? The very same people that were
all dressed there nicely at one hour had murder in their hearts
in the next hour. Why? Why? Because the Lord Jesus
Christ was not just full of grace and truth. He illustrated grace
and truth. He illustrated and people find
the illustration of grace and truth offensive. He returned in the power of the
Spirit into Galilee where went out the fame of him through all
the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues
and being glorified of all, and he came to Nazareth where he
had been brought up. And as was his custom, as his
custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day
and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written. This is Isaiah chapter
61. He found this place and he describes
himself. He said, the spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor, to the beggars, the poor who have nothing, absolutely
nothing of themselves. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
not just a sick heart, but a broken heart. A broken heart is a heart
that doesn't work. Completely hard. To preach deliverance
to the captives. The captives are the prisoners
of war. Captive. The recovering of sight
to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised. What a
glorious description. where they were to have two years
doing absolutely nothing and God would provide for them. And
the remarkable thing is that anyone who had sold themselves
and lost everything that they owned sounded in that jubilee year.
There was a trumpet to be sounded throughout the land and every
Israelite who was a slave was to be set free and returned to
his family. Every Israelite who had lost
everything that he ever had by his sin and his wickedness and
the circumstance of this world had it all for you restored to
him. What an extraordinary day. What an extraordinary sound that
trumpet must have been. It wouldn't have been a remarkable
sound for those who had absolutely nothing and had lost everything.
And it would have been a dreadful trumpet sound for those who had
things, wouldn't it? If you owned the land and you
had to give them back, the trumpet sound would have taken everything
from you. Which is why, in all of Israel's
history, in their religious self-righteousness
and never did it. Why? Because it was a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a picture of what he does.
He sets the prisoners free. He restores and returns. He heals. Verse 20, and he closed the book
and he gave it again to the minister. He sat down and the eyes of all
of them in the synagogue were fastened on him. What a remarkable
sight. a remarkable thing to be in the
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they all bore him witness
and wondered at the gracious words which had proceeded out
of his mouth. Isn't this wonderful? If the parable stopped there,
you would think what a wonderful day. all of this church service
is finished, and we all go home, and we go home rejoicing about
how glorious our God is, and we delight in the acceptable
year of the Lord. And then they said, and see,
what did they do? They looked at the flesh of this
man in front of them, because he looked as ordinary as anyone
else. It was the gracious words that came out of his mouth, but
he was ordinary. Isn't this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, "'You
will surely say unto me this proverb, "'Position, heal thyself,
and whosoever we have heard done,' "'whosoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, "'do also here in your country. "'Verily I say
unto you, no prophet is accepted "'in his own country, but I tell
you of a truth, "'that many widows in Israel,' "'there were many
widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,' when the heaven was
shut up for three years and six months, and when a great famine
was throughout the land. But unto none of them was Elias
sent, save to Sarepta, a city of Sidon, a Phoenician city on
the outskirts of Israel, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elisha, the prophet, and none of them was cleansed,
saving Naaman the Syrian. Now there he is reading Bible
stories to these people. You can read about it in the Because God's grace to bestow on who he wishes. What
is the complaint of fallen man all the time? We will not have
this man to rule over us. We will not have God be a king. We'll have a God who will respond
to our activities and our doings and all these things that we
bring. It's always been the same. natural rebellion in their heart
against God and his very being, and causes them to be worshippers. Naaman was an enemy of Israel,
a mighty man of power in an enemy nation of Israel, and God healed
him. And Naaman comes bother to get out of his house,
does he? This man was as proud as ever. Even with his leprosy,
he was a proud man. And Elisha said, just go and
tell him to dip in the Jordan seven times, and he'll be clean. And Naaman goes away in a rage. How dare he tell me to do that? And you can read the story in
First Kings, but you'll see that the servants actually had the
wisdom to say to Naaman, well, if he'd asked you to do some
amazing thing, you would have gone off and done it, do it.
He's asking you to do next to nothing to be saved. Go and dip in this dirty Jordan
River. And he did. And he came out of that water
on the seventh time. But the most glorious words are
at the end when Naaman wants to offer a gift. He says, I've
got to give something in return for all this. And Elisha said,
we don't accept gifts. We're here to be givers. We're here
to be givers. To be a recipient of grace is
to be a receiver, is what our text in John 1.16 says. But one of the most remarkable
things about it is that Naaman says to Elisha, he just wants
two basketfuls of the soil from Israel to take back so that he
can worship God in a place that reminds him. And he says, my
master's gonna take me into the temple of Rimon. and I'm gonna
have to go in with him, and he'll lean on my arm and he'll cause
me to bow down before this idol, who I know is nothing but a demonic
delusion. How do you live the rest of your
life, having been saved by grace? Elisha speaks the words of God
to Naaman. Go in peace. Go in peace. Go in peace. God's grace comes. God's grace is sufficient. God's
grace is discriminating. Why did the people in the synagogue
find the declaration of the character of God and the grace of God offensive? They thought God owed them something
because of what they did. And all in the synagogue, if
you go back to Luke chapter 4 verse 28, when they heard these things,
they heard these things about who the Lord Jesus Christ is,
they heard these things about what He will do, to the broken
hearted, what he will do to the captives, what he will do to
those who are blind, what he will do to the ones that are
bruised, the ones that are crushed by the circumstances of their
sin, their circumstances of life. They were filled, these people
were filled with wrath. and rose up, and thrust him out
of the city, and led him under the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst Pass me not, O gracious Saviour. While on the others thou art
calling, do not pass me by. He passed by because he had other
sheep. He left these people in their
wrath and went on. The very next parable is him
cleansing a person who has an unclean devil. He just goes on.
The glory of the grace of God is a cause for rejoicing in the
children of God who are receivers. Name and received, grace for
grace. Grace and truth comes by the
Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord cause us to be joyful
receivers. May he cause us To see his hand
on our lives that humbles us and strips us of our goodness
and our righteousness and makes us to be lepers like Laman. Untourable. They are the recipients
of grace. May the Lord make us, mighty
make us receivers, mighty make us worshippers, mighty make us
to be like the widow and Naaman and like the prodigal. You come
back not to clean yourself up. The qualifications for coming
is to be a sinner, The qualifications for staying are to be a believing
sinner, a rejoicing sinner. What a glorious, glorious God
we have. Let's sing again. We're going
to sing number 69. Thank you. Hark the voice of love and mercy,
sounds aloud from Calvary, see it rends the rocks asunder, shakes
the earth and veils the sky. It is finished, it is finished,
hear the dying Saviour's cry. So, joy to praise