The parable of the prodigal son
comes in Luke. In the beginning of Luke, Jesus
is beginning to have conversations with people of the town. The
Pharisee and scribes are beginning to put a little bit of pressure
to him. He's feeling the wrenches and the pliers of what they're
saying. It is one of 46 parables in the Bible. I did not know
that there were that many, but it seems to be one of the more
popular ones. Parable actually means in Greek to compare. And so when we look at the parables,
there's usually a comparison of something that we're trying
to get across. Jesus was definitely trying to get across to the Pharisees
and scribes at that time, particularly in this parable, that he was
looking that there would be a law gospel distinction. He takes
two characters, he takes three characters, he takes four characters,
and begins to illuminate through a little moral spiritual story,
the parable of the prodigal son. Now interestingly enough, we
see ourselves not only in the prodigal son, the younger of
the prodigal sons, but we see ourselves in the older of the
two brothers. And so what we're going to do
is we're going to take the time, I don't have that many pages, I only
have 32 pages that I have to go through, so we'll try and
go through them as quickly as possible. But what we want to
do is actually begin to look at some of the characters and
what they represent in the parable. If it's one thing that I have
begun to understand with doing a little bit more scripture searching
and preparing for Sunday schools and Wednesday nights, is the
scriptures are really, really great at connecting the dots.
We would think that this passage over here has nothing to do with
this passage or vice versa. And Charles Spurgeon once said,
you know, if you open up anywhere in the Bible and you can't find
Christ in that passage, then you're not studying the scriptures
and searching the scriptures enough. So what we want to begin
to do is we want to break down this parable so that you have
an understanding of each of the characters that he represents.
What's interesting, keep this in mind, he's talking to the
Pharisees, he's talking to the people who would know the Old
Testament scriptures. I mean, these guys were like
the best of the best back then. They were the professional people
who knew the scriptures in and out. And then Jesus is in the
business of deconstructing what they know, and he's raising up
a new covenant, and he says, these are the things I say to
you. And so he elevates the ideas of what the Old Testament has,
the foreknowledge of him coming, now he's here, now he's giving
you, in quote-unquote, the gospel or the good news. So let's take
a look at a couple things. The term prodigal actually comes
from two words in Latin that mean to go forth with money.
And it doesn't mean necessarily to go forth with just money,
it means to waste your money. And not in any kind of like,
well, you know, I bought two lottery tickets, I only had five
dollars left. No, no, it is a complete waste of your money. And so when
we're looking at terms like prodigal, it indicates the quality of a
person who wastes it by spending it with reckless abandon. And there's a difference between
someone who's abandoning and reckless abandon. You've got
nothing to lose in reckless abandon, right? And so he's out there
and going through it. So he's nervous, the Pharisees
are nervous because they say, hey look at the publicans and
sinners, they're drawing near to this guy. They're eating with
this guy. He's receiving these people unto
himself and as his own. What's interesting is he uses
the term that he's eating with them. What is one thing that
every body on the planet does? They have to eat. And so he's
a universal idea that he's eating with these people. The interesting
thing is the scribes and Pharisees were not sinless in any way,
shape, or form. As a matter of fact, they were
self-righteous. And so we want to deconstruct
again the idea behind the parable, each of the characters, and then
what we'll do is We'll come to some parabolic conclusions on
what it means to have a law, gospel, law, grace distinction
from the parable itself. Alright, so let's take a look
at the son. In typical Jewish fashion, the older brother would
get double the inheritance as his siblings. In this case, the
older brother would get two-thirds and the younger brother only
a third. The younger brother says to his dad, I want my money
now. Remember the commercial for,
was it, J.D. Wentworth? I want my money now. Yet what
he's saying in that reality is, You have become dead to me. If
there's been any inheritance, you usually get the inheritance
after someone passes away. So the bequeath you something,
we're instructed to bequeath a little something to our kids
for their future. But he says to his dad, you're dead to me.
I don't want any more of what you have to offer. You've given
me what you're supposed to give me. Now I want my one third. And what's interesting is he
almost goes to the point, if not right on the cusp of being
an entitlement mentality. It's, it's, you're going to give
it to me anyway, you owe it to me, give it to me now. And the
entitlement mentality leads him from a place of haughtiness to
a place of absolute humility and bitterness. And so we have
to keep those things in mind, as the Jewish boy says to his
father, I have a question for the fathers that are here today,
or mothers. How many of you would have your son or daughter come
up to you and say to you, I want one third of my inheritance now,
and I want you to give it to me now? We would most likely
laugh in their face. We'd say, thank you very much,
go get me a cup of coffee and don't forget to vacuum your room.
The interesting thing is, he doesn't do that at all. And so
my question is, if we were to look at in modern day vernacular
and parlance, was this kid ADD? Was he ADHD? Was he anxious? Was he depressed? Was he frustrated?
Was he all the things that we take medications for today, that
he was a little bit nutty and saying, I want my stuff now?
Or was he suffering with a super huge case of being discontent?
Now, I'm going to tell you, it's my thought process, that he was
a malcontent to a massive degree, as we are all malcontent to a
massive degree. And so we have to take that into
consideration. One of the things that we've
been working through in our Sunday school class is this thing called
the hedonic treadmill. We're always doing something
on, what's the bigger, better deal for me? What's in it for
me? We're at FOMO, fear of missing out. I'm in the business of comparison. And what we know is that those
things have a tendency to cause a massive amount of consternation
and problems. And it does. It causes some anxiety,
especially when we're in the business of comparison. But he
compares himself to the world and says, I want my money because
he knows what he's going to do with his money. It's already
pre-planned. He's not going to the stock market
to invest it. He's not going to start an orphanage.
He's going to rock and roll and party till the cows come home.
And that's exactly what he knows he's going to do. So there's
no mistaking what this character is involved with. What's interesting
is, it proves to him, and it proves to the rest of us, that
self-absorption can cause a lot of problems. And when we find
ourselves in the midst of sin, and we find ourselves going against
what the Word of God has to say, we find ourselves in a season
of discontent, we are going to do exactly what Jonathan Edwards
says. We always do exactly what we
want to do, according to how it's going to make us feel at
any given moment. And that's a problem because
we get absorbed in the moment and we don't look out what's
going out in the distance. We tend to be what we call myopic.
What is right in front of us right now? And we make decisions
based on what's in front of us right now, not what is necessarily
going to be better for us. This kid knew what he was going
to do. Did he ever consider, holy mackerel,
there's an end to the party. Right? There's always an end
to the party. Every great party comes to an end. Right? Because
then it becomes the beginning of another great party. But it
has to come to an end at some point. He knows what path he's
taking. So he's off to the races. The
father gives him the money. Here's the problem. Have you
ever been to a great party and then the refreshments end? And
then the Doritos are gone? And then the pizza's gone? And
then the music stops? What does everybody do? They
leave the party. And that's exactly what this
kid does. He leads a riotous life. He's the life of the party.
The problem is this. Once the money runs out, the
funny runs out. No money, no funny. And this
is where he now begins to see himself in the greater picture
of, where are my friends? Well, the scripture tells us
that no greater friend are you than to lay the life down. And
my friends are what? They stick closer than a brother.
Where did his friends go when the party was over? They scatter. Hardly friends at all. But if
you've ever been to a party at someone else's house and you
have no idea who they are, those Doritos, pizzas, beer and pop,
all that stuff, all good. Music's good. TV's good. Entertainment's
good. But as soon as it ends, you flee
that party just like somebody else does. And that's exactly
what this kid did. Now, I don't know exactly what
riotous living this kid does because it's a parable. But let's
take it for what he did. He got crazy. I mean, there was
a no bars hold kind of attitude. He had the money. He could afford
all the good things. And that's exactly what he did.
He was riotous. He was prodigal. He took his
money and he wasted it with reckless abandon. There was nothing left. Right? I'm so broke I can't afford
to pay attention. He didn't have two dimes to rub
together. He was done. Now, here's the interesting thing.
What does it profit a man to gain the world, yet lose his
soul? He gained everything that the
culture in the world would tell you that was good at that moment,
right? Let's eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may
die. And he imbibed, and ate, and all that kind of thing until
there was nothing left, and his friends helped him do it, and
what good friends he had to help him do all that partying, right?
Hey, you've got to go to the store, we're running out of this,
and get back to the store and run out of this. No more money.
Here's the problem. He lost the glorious days of
champagne and filet mignon. And if you've ever had champagne
and filet mignon, it's better than burger fries and coke. Burger
fries and cokes are better than dumpster diving. But here's a
young Jewish boy who now has to find his way into the working
world again. And what does he do? He goes
somewhere where he's humiliated beyond belief. So there's four
humiliations for a young Jewish boy finding himself in the hog
pen. Number one, he subjected himself
to a pagan. If we look at the preceding parable,
and we're talking about the Good Samaritan, which is worth investigating,
there's a reason why He's humiliated when it comes down to submitting
himself and subjecting himself to the authority of a pagan.
The Jews of that time did not think that that was very lofty
at all. As a matter of fact, they thought the pagan was very
low. Number two, he had to feed the pagans' pigs. What do we
know about Jews even today? What don't they eat? They don't
eat pork. They don't eat pigs. So imagine,
not only are you humiliated from that standpoint, but the fact
is, now you're feeding what you would never eat yourself. And
so now we have a problem. Now we're starting to figure
exactly what the pressure is. We're getting it to cave in on
us. Our chest is becoming a little bit more compressed with the
humiliation that he's beginning to suffer. Think of a time for
a just quick moment here in a flash, at a time that you've been humiliated
beyond belief and the feeling that encompasses you. It's not
like a warm fuzzy blanket at a campfire. No, it's more like
a bucket of cold water at the campfire and you got hit in the
face with it. It's humiliating. Number three, he's not even eating
as well as the pigs. Now that's got to be humiliating
because he doesn't eat pigs. He's not supposed to eat pigs.
The pigs are eating better than him. So now he realizes in a
caste system that he's lower than what he values as low. That's
a problem. That's humiliating in and of
itself. And number four, no one gives him food, not even the
slob. So he comes to this conclusion,
even my father's servants are treated better than this. So
he looks at what he would never participate in, he realizes the
caste system that he finds himself in, lower than the swine, and
then comes to realize, I've got to come to my senses. And the
scripture says, he comes to his senses, which means now he thinks
about what is going on, the decision that he makes, the gravity, the
weight, the encompassing of the bad decisions that says, look
it, this is no good, I am in a bad Bad place there is nothing
good that can come from this at all right when we talked to
the one time on Wednesday What good can come out of? Jerusalem
right what good can come out of feeding pigs that are eating
better than me He realizes that he has sinned against his father.
Is this not the great revelation? That we have as someone who's
walking around lost and then we come to our spiritual senses
that we begin to realize that we have sinned against our Heavenly
Father And that's the analogy. Remember, keep this in mind.
He's talking to the Pharisees and the scribes. So every allegory,
every little type and shadow that he's putting inside of this
parable, they should understand. And they should understand it
in full because these are the things that they were teaching
to the Jewish people at that time. And so when they're talking
about, do this, do that, jump higher, run faster, try harder,
you've got to give your best, you're not working hard enough,
they understood that. And then along comes Jesus and
begins to deconstruct all of these ideas. He hems us into
the idea that, you know what, we're not going to keep the law.
You mean to tell me, do you really think, does anybody here really
think that the scribes and the Pharisees of that time kept the
law perfectly? No. What's interesting, we'll
jump ahead just a quick minute here, what's interesting is the
son has no idea, number one, that his brother was with prostitutes
when he's giving all his prostitutions and complaints to his dad. But
he names something that would be the most cardinal of cardinal
things. He's out there doing things that
we ought not to be doing and he's doing it with prostitutes
and whores. How does his brother know that? Because his brother
didn't talk to him. There was no communication. He's still
working in the fields trying to obey and do well. But what's
interesting is Jesus uses the word prostitute there for a very,
I think, for a very simple reason. Who did they bring to Jesus and
throw down at his feet and said, hey, we caught this prostitute
in the very act of adultery. And they all pick up the rocks,
they're gonna stone him. And he says, okay, let any one of
you guys who are so innocent, let you cast the first stone.
What's marvelous about that little illustration is that the older
ones, they say, drop the rocks first. Because they were old
enough and sage enough and wise enough and experienced enough
to do what? He's got us on this one. Everyone who drops a rock
said this, I'm guilty. And that's exactly what he says.
I'm guilty. We're all guilty. He got the scribes and Pharisees
at that point. He got the accusers at that point
to realize, I'm no better off than anybody else than the lady
right here. You know, there's one of the things they say, you
know, he wrote something in the dirt. I always think he wrote this.
Watch this. No, we don't know what he wrote. We can speculate. But what do
you think he wrote? Watch this. You know, and I'm
sure there was a little bit of this. Thank you, Jesus, that
was good. Right? We don't know, but if we're going
to infer, I would say it would always be something positive
on behalf of the prostituting sinner, who is we, that we would
say, thank you, Lord. And he asks the question, where
are your accusers now? So he comes into his senses and
he realizes he has to go home. When we run from the law, we
have a tendency to not come home. When we run from grace, we have
a tendency to want to come home. Because grace forgives the sins
that we have committed. So think about the idea, he says
he comes to his senses, he realizes he has sinned against his father,
and he wants to go home. Think of every time when you
were a little kid and something went wrong, what did you think
in the back of your mind? I just want to go home. The Wizard of
Oz, there's no place like home. And so the home becomes something
different. He wants to run back to his father's estate. He wants
to run back to his father's arms. He's already been humiliated.
He begins to recite what he's going to say to his father. I've
sinned against you, father, and only against you have I sinned.
I'm not worthy to even be called your son anymore. Put me in line
of your servants because they're doing better than me. At least
they're not humiliated because they know their place. They have
food to eat. They probably have a hot shower.
They probably have a cot to lay on. They have things that I don't
even have anymore. And so he goes off to home. So
let's switch our attention now to the father. What father in
their right mind would say to their kid, here's one third of
your inheritance? I wouldn't. My kids are sitting
up here. Please do not ask me for one-third
of your inheritance yet. You will get it when it's coming.
Your mother and I are going to try and blow every penny of it. Just
kidding. We'll leave you a couple things.
But the interesting thing is this. There's a reason why his
father gives it to him. Because the illustration is this.
It shows us the reflection of the amazing indulgence that God
shows towards us. You want to know why? Because
even when we are sitting directly against him, he allows us to
fail and to fail miserably. And get out of the way because
Paul may not be the chief of sinners. He might have to get
behind me and probably you and for sure you. And so the idea
is, look at the indulgence that God even grants us once we've
made a profession of faith. Unbelievable to think that he's
so long-suffering towards us. So there's a reflection of exactly
what the father represents in letting this kid have his indulgence.
Now, this is what I find interesting. Five particular things, maybe
six particular things about the father. Number one, he sees the
boy coming home from afar. Two things with that. Number
one, does it mean he was looking for him? Yeah, man, it was this
kid. Now, I don't know when my boy's
coming home from college, but if he calls me up and says, yeah,
I'll be home, I start looking at my watch about the time I
think he needs to be home. I want to look from a near to
when his car pulls in the driveway. I'm not looking for him on 96. The Father, it says, was looking
for him from afar. Now, I find that to be really
nice because I know a God that has written my name in the Lamb's
Book of Life and has seen me from afar. How far? Before the very foundation of
the world. He knew my name would be written in that Lamb's Book
of Life. So now we have something that says we have a Heavenly
Father who is looking for us from afar. That's awesome. If you've had a little kid, don't
you pay attention to your kid when he's running around? I remember I
took my boy one time to the bookstore, and my wife said, keep an eye
on him. He's going to be okay. And I took my eye off him for
one second, and paranoia set in immediately. I'm the kind
of guy that if I'm in the middle of the store and I want my son,
I'm going to yell his name louder than any PA system. And I found him about six minutes
later and said, don't tell your mother. Right? Because then I
have some other stuff I've got to deal with. He was looking
for his son from afar. How about this one right here?
Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew your name. From afar. Man, that's catastrophic. That's eternally catastrophic. I don't want to do that. I don't
want to have God say to me, depart from me, you workers. But Lord,
we did all these great things in your name. Depart from me, you workers
of iniquity. I never knew your name. I was never intimate with
your name. I was never writing your name
in the Lamb's book of life from afar. That's tough, especially
when we juxtapose those two things where the father sees us from
afar and he's there to receive us versus he looks at us from
afar and says, I never knew your name. You can walk. You don't
need to run. As a matter of fact, I'd crawl if I were you. Slow
it down. Number two, he runs to the boy. Isn't it God's upside-down
economy that God would run to us? That He's out there chasing
us? Pastor Clark likes to use the
word, the hound of heaven is chasing us, right? Once he gets
on your side, he's chasing us. Because the scripture is very
plain when it says, no one seeketh after God. So now we have the
upside-down economy of a Jewish father who's in robes running
to his prodigal son. Not a very distinguished look
for a Jewish father. Now, I don't wear robes, I've
never worn robes, but I can't imagine I'm going to break the
100-yard dash fast wearing a robe running. He's running, he's breaking
all of these economic rules that we would look at today and say,
what are you running for, man? It's just your boy coming home. He
runs to his boy. Number three, he hugs and kisses
his son all over in celebration. I still hug and kiss my kids
hello and goodbye. It doesn't matter, they're my kids. They'll
be my kids forever. They're the third greatest gift
that God's ever given me, my wife being number one. And I
love to hug and kiss her hello and goodbye. She's mine, God
gave her to me and I'm with her. And my kids, God gave those kids
to me and God gave me to them. I'm gonna hug and kiss them every
chance I get because there'll be a day when there's no more
of that. This is what blows my mind. He
doesn't admonish the boy with, I told you so's. There's no interrogation,
no denigration, no investigation. When my kids go to the mailbox,
I say, where are you going? Who are you going with? How long
are you going to be gone? What are you going to do out
there? Dad, I'm just going to the mailbox. It's right over
there. But the father doesn't do that, does he? When we come
to our loving father's arm, does he say, okay, Kyle, now, where
were you back in, where were you back in 85, Kyle? Okay, he
doesn't do any of that at all. He accepts us with an open arm
because the sin debt has been paid in full. Do you really think
God needs to ask a rhetorical question like, hey, where you
been? He knows where we've been. That's why his son went to the
cross, because he knows where we've been, and he knows what
we're doing, he knows what we're thinking, and he knows where
we're going. That's the crazy part. So, where's the money I
gave you, by the way? Do you have an Excel spreadsheet
with the details and receipts? Yeah, doesn't do any of that.
Nor does our heavenly Father say that to us, which is nice. He puts a robe on him. Are we
not robed in the righteousness of Christ? He puts a ring on
him to signify royalty and an acceptance and a replacement
back into the family. Do we not have the ring of Christ?
Because what more? We're children of the king. That
means we're royalty. We can never be removed from
that. God is our heavenly father, which means we're a child of
the king. And if he gave his only begotten
son, what more can he give to us but eternal life and love
and acceptance unconditionally? This is the best part. He puts
sandals on the boy. Now the Pharisees would know
what this means. The sandals represent he was no longer a
slave by having no sandals on his feet. He's a taken person.
And we're having the sandals of Christ because we're accepted
into the family of Christ from the very foundation of the world.
Our sandals, our robe, and our rings are all there telling the
world we have a heavenly Father. We have a double imputation.
My unrighteousness gets cast onto Christ. His righteousness
gets put onto me. That's the robe of righteousness.
My feet are covered by the sandals of the shed blood of Christ.
I'm off the slave market of sin. And now I'm a bond servant, I'm
a bond slave to Christ. And these things are all allegorical.
The Pharisees knew what this meant. So Jesus just keeps turning
the screws on these guys non-stop. Think about the kid. Think about
his lostness. Think about what the father does
in accepting him back. He's running. He's indistinguished.
He's breaking these rules. He's kissing his kid. He's making
sure that everybody knows, hey, this is my boy. My boy has come
home. My boy. Not your boy. I don't
care about your boy. My boy has come home. And that's
what he's saying. He orders a celebration. My son
was once dead. Now he's alive again. There isn't
a parent here who wouldn't love to proclaim that my son is alive
again. He was lost and now he's alive. My boy has come home. My lineage, my love, my everything
has come home in my boy. My namesake, my genetics, my
past, my future. He has come home. He's come home
to a welcoming Father with open arms, just like we can come home
to the open arms of Christ in our Father. J.C. Rye once said,
one single soul saved shall outlive and outweigh all the kingdoms
of this modern world. So now let's turn to the fatted
calf. Not usually people talk about the fatted calf in this
story, but it's actually the best part of the story. There
is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. And what
does he do? He takes not just the calf, he
takes the fatted calf, the prized calf. God doesn't just use any
bull and goat. He takes his only son and sheds
his blood for the remission of our sins. That is the fatted
calf in the story. It is Christ and him crucified,
a celebration of a sinner coming home to the Lord. God did not
spare his only son for the remission of our sins. We are the sinner,
that is me. We are saved, that is through
Jesus. The sacrifice was Calvary, and the celebration is eternal
security. All in one line that says, kill
the fatted calf, the prize calf. It wasn't that he had a choice
of how many calves. There was one calf. It wasn't
like God said, well, let's get him. No, no, no. He had one son. It wasn't like he could pick
one. I don't know. One, I love my boy, man. I love my daughter. I don't know
if I want to give up my daughter. I don't want to know if I want
to give up my son. It's tough. One, he had to give it up. Let's
take a look at the older brother. Not so relaxed at all, right? Okay, was he jealous? Doesn't say he was jealous, but
he said he was angry. And I'll tell you what, the jealousy and
the anger starts soon as we start with the whole bigger, better
deal. What's in it for me? Comparison, right? Facebook. Social media is not good for
your mental health. Get off it. Too much comparison. Everybody's
showing you their highlight reel while you're sitting in a puddle
of disappointment. Get off of social media. That's just a blurb.
That's not in the thing here. OK. The older brother attitudes
illustrates the judgmental spirit of the Pharisees who were annoyed
at the presence of a sinner. So when we talk about him saying
to his dad, hey, he's out there partying with all these whores.
Again, we've already done this. So to reiterate it very quickly,
how does he know that? But the parable picks something
that we would say. He didn't say he's out there
playing the ponies. He's out there at 7-Eleven around the
corner. He didn't say that. What he said was he picks the
most probably degradory thing of that time. Right? The most
carnal, fleshy, anti-spiritual thing he can think of at that
particular time, and picks that. But as Tullian to Vigin says,
why is it that the prostitutes, publicans, sinners, and thieves
get the gospel before the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Sadducees?
because they need it more than anybody, right? They're the dregs.
Christ didn't come to spy out our sins. He came to relieve
us of those sins. And if you're suffering with
what the older brother did, with a really venomous case of self-righteous,
then we have our own set of problems. And it is my contention that
he is suffering discontent more than the brother. Because he
has everything there, he's supposedly following the rules. But Father,
I've never leaved you, I've done everything you've asked me to
do. So you put away the garden hose, you cleaned the shovels,
you mucked the stalls, you did everything I've asked you to
do. I mean, dotted every i, crossed the t's, every little tittle,
you've done all that stuff. No, he probably hasn't, but again,
it's parabolic, so we can just look at it for what it says.
No one does all those things. But he says to his dad, you know,
I've been here doing this whole thing. Where's the goat? Where's
even a baby goat, a kid? Now what's interesting is this,
he doesn't use the term, where's my fatty calf? He picks something
lower than that. He picks a goat. But in the realm
of, there has to be a shedding of blood between bulls and goats.
And so he does pick something, the Pharisees should have picked
on this, but it was less than that fatty calf. It was less
than the number one prize that the father could have sacrificed.
He says, you've been here the whole time. There's nowhere in
the story where the older brother says to his dad, you know, I've
asked you a bunch of times for a party on Friday night, not
one time. His dad says, I've been here
the whole time. Here's what's interesting. The older brother has not lost
anything. He has two thirds of his father's
inheritance coming to him. He hasn't lost anything. He's
discontent. He's in the business of comparison.
Come on, man. I'm pointing at Dwayne. Come
on, Dwayne. Right? For me, at least interpretively,
it's hardcore that someone who thinks that they can maintain
the law is better than those of us that know we can't maintain
the law. And that self-righteousness is a venom unto itself. And all
venom is poisonous. And so we have to pay attention
to that. So as we begin to wind down, I want to read at least
the parabolic comparisons between Law, the older boy, who by the
way is not only angry with his brother, but he's angry with
his father. For what reason? Does he not
have food? Does he not have gainful employment?
Does he not have a place to sleep? If he would have asked his father,
his father would have said, I've been here the whole time. You
want to go? Go ahead and get your friends together. Have some
hummus and Han bread. I don't care what you do. But
he never says that. He's angry. His anger blinds
his better judgment. Raise your hand if your anger
has ever blinded your better judgment. As Pastor Clark would say, those
of you who didn't raise your hand, you're lying. So we have a problem. So let's look at the difference
between the law and grace. The law condemns, grace saves. The law accuses, grace acquits. The law is rigid and inflexible.
God's grace is the surgical scalpel that cuts out the cancerous effects
of sin out of our soul. The law is a reflection of God's
perfect holiness and perfection, be like my Father in Heaven who
is perfect. But grace is otherworldly for an upside-down economy in
which Christ propitiates the sins of the thief, the harlot,
the publican, the liar, the cheater, the addict, the politician and
teacher, the doctor, the mom, the grandma, the janitor, even
the preacher, the sinner just like you and me. Law demands
justice, grace is unmerited favor. Law can create self-righteousness.
Grace leaves no room to boast. The law imprisons. Grace liberates. There's close to 1,500 laws on
the books. Only one is needed in grace for
the remission of sins. And for you rock and rollers
out there, I fought the law and the law won. With grace, it's
amazing how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. So I'm
going to go ahead and I'm going to read something from Tullian
to Vigin, and I think it sums up pretty much the gospel the
way we need to be understanding it. The gospel liberates us to
be okay with not being okay. We know we're not okay, though
we try very hard to convince ourselves and other people that
we're basically fine. The gospel effectively tells
us, relax, it's finished, the pressure's off. Because of the
gospel, we have nothing to prove or protect. We can stop pretending. We can take off our masks and
be real. The gospel frees us from trying to impress people,
appease people, or measure up for people. The gospel frees
us from the burden of trying to control what other people
think about us. It frees us from the miserable, unquenchable pursuit
to make something of ourselves by the using of others. When
I use the term gospel, you can substitute the word grace. The
gospel grants us the strength to admit we're weak and needy
and restless, knowing that Christ's finished work has proven to be
all the strength, fulfillment, and peace we could ever want
and more. Because Jesus is our strength, our weaknesses don't
threaten our sense of worth and value. Now we're free to admit
our wrongs and weaknesses without feeling as our flesh is being
ripped off our bones. When we understand that our significance,
security, and identity are all anchored in Christ, we don't
have to win, we're free to lose. And nothing in this broken world
can beat a person who isn't afraid to lose. We'll be free to say
crazy, risky, counterintuitive stuff like, to live is Christ
and to die is gain. Real, pure, unadulterated freedom
happens when the resources of the gospel crush any sense of
need to secure ourselves for anything beyond what Christ has
already secured for us. What we see here in our lives
is that love inspires what the law demands. The law prescribes
good works, but only grace can produce them. Gratitude, generosity,
honesty, compassion, acts of mercy and self-sacrifice, all
requirements of the law spring unsummoned from a forgiven heart.
This is how God works on us. He picks us the least deserving
out of the crowd, insists upon being in a relationship with
us, and creates in us a new heart miraculously capable of pleasing,
loving, and obeying Him.