It's kind of like our elder was
saying, truly God is good to Israel, isn't He? And this is
our Father's will, isn't it? And so we don't have to worry
about a thing. It's going to all get taken care
of. Do you believe that? I do too. I want you to turn
back in your Bibles to Luke chapter 15 where we will continue our
investigation of one of the most popular parables ever uttered
in the mouth of our great God and Savior. We have been contemplating this
threefold parable of the repentant sinner coming to God, and we
have come to understand that this is a threefold work of God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The first
parable of the sheep and the shepherd, we saw imminently the
work of Jesus Christ and the redemption of the souls of every
one of his people. We who are believers in Christ
are sheep. That's a good term for you. You
are a sheep. You are not a mountain lion.
You are not a gazelle. You are not a leopard, a tiger.
I don't care what you fancy yourself. All you are is a sheep. You don't
run fast. You have no defense mechanism. Most of the time you stink. Am I making a good description
of what we are by nature? Yeah, most of the time you stink. But what's beautiful about the
sheep is that they have a shepherd. that shepherd is glorious and
therefore we are as secure as eternity itself because of our
great shepherd now in the second parable we talked about this
diligent poor but but seriously desperate woman who sought out
that one missing coin and we've learned that you and our coins
too now you're not a silver dollar not and you certainly not a gold
bullion that's we are by nature a dumb nickel
dumb and we're dead spiritually and we are totally helpless if
someone doesn't come and seek us out and save us we would be
lost forever but in God's mercy he sought us out didn't he he
swept through the dirt of humanity of which we all were until we
made a noise help Lord and by his grace plucked us up and brought
us back into the kingdom of God the parable that's in front of
us we are dealing with in three parts the parable of the prodigal
son last week we addressed the prodigal son and I said in the
opening of that message that we are all prodigals if you're
saved you are a prodigal you are a wasteful aimless undisciplined
wretch by nature. That's why you and I have to
be saved. And in God's good mercy, he chose to come and retrieve
us from our prodigal state. Aren't you glad to be saved?
in the account of the prodigal son there are a number of lessons
worth us contemplating with regards to the nature of redemption last
week we talked about the prodigal at length if you weren't here
get the message and we discussed how that the prodigal And his
selfishness said to his father, give me all that is mine. I want
mine. And his father gave him what
he requested and left him to himself. And he went into the
world and he squandered all that he had because he was not wise
enough to understand that the safest place for a son to be
is in the presence of his father. This is why our master, the Lord
Jesus Christ, said in John chapter 17, Verses 1 through 3, Father,
restore unto me the glory that I had with you before the world
began. I want to be with you. I have finished the work that
you have given me to do. Now bring me back to that place
where I am most content. And sons and daughters of God
are most content in the presence of their Father. What's remarkable
about this parable is not so much the foolishness and the
sinful behavior that dominated the prodigal son's life. You
and I can readily identify with that if you believe what the
scriptures say about who you are by nature. I know I was a
prodigal. I know that. There's no argument
about that. I know that I was vile I know
that I gave myself over to my lust and my passion and in God's
mercy I didn't engage in it as much as I wanted to because he
stopped me in my tracks. Thank God And so we can quickly
identify with the foolish behavior, the senseless, hateful attitude
that this young man depicted and demonstrated towards his
father when he told his father to just tear up, tear up the
inheritance, divide it now, because I want mine now, not later. Now,
this is a now generation. I want it now. I want it now. And now gets us in trouble all
the time, doesn't it? Wanted now he wasn't prepared
for it But his father gave it to him in his own wise providence
for a number of reasons and the boy found himself in a mess Found
himself in a mess. Look at what it says over in
verse 15 I'm sorry verse 14 and when he had spent everything
There arose a mighty famine in that land and he began to be
in one. Do you see that? he lost all
of his wealth all of his resources and he started to dry up in his
soul and he began to be hungry and that's where we pick up in
our parable our parable today the title of our message is the
prodigal father and i know you might wonder why such a title
but hopefully we'll be able to uh bring to bear the relevance
of that title here in a moment. But I want you to understand
that one of the things that the scriptures do, particularly in
the relationship between husbands and wives and the model of the
family, is to exalt the superlative nature of what it means to be
a parent. The Bible gives a strong burden
for women in Proverbs chapter 31. Y'all know that proverb,
right? That Proverbs 31 scares a bunch
of y'all, doesn't it? Because it holds up such a magnificent
standard of character and virtue and diligence and industriousness
on the part of what is called the Proverbs 31 woman that for
many of my sisters, it's kind of a burden even thinking about
trying to live up to that standard. Isn't that right? and yet God
leaves that standard out there not for you to live up to but
to look to and to derive from it principles by which you yourself
can apply it to your life and do the best job you possibly
can as a wife and as a mother and as a woman of God. Listen
to me ladies, the Bible calls womanhood to a very high and
dignified status. To be a woman of God is a preeminent
position. To be a mother in Christ is a
prominent position. There's nothing that you should
despise about it. There shouldn't even be an ounce
of shame at being called to womanhood or motherhood or being a wife
for God's cause or God's glory. All you should ever desire to
do is try to halfway meet those characteristics there for the
glory of the God who called you by his grace. Am I telling the
truth? Well, equally what God has done with the parable of
the prodigal son is give us fathers, us men, an imminent type of fatherhood
in the area of this prodigal's father that is just larger than
we could ever begin to meet. The prodigal father in this account
is intentionally impeccable. There's nothing that he does
that's wrong. I know last week I challenged you a little bit
in terms of the relationship between the father and the son.
And when we begin to compare human relationships on an earthly
level between fathers and their children today, you know, it's
a dismal mess, don't you? You know, we got all kinds of
problems, both on the side of our children, as well as on the
side of the what? Parents. We've got a lot of delinquent
fathers. We got a lot of messed up fathers
We got a lot of fathers whose priorities are not in the right
place and as a consequence Families are in a very very difficult
situation today. We own our mistakes We own our
having messed up. We recognize that we have failed
on many levels. Haven't we fathers? Oh, we just
are messed up. I Just need one witness messed
up Tell the truth now I don't know how we lost our mind and
thought we could even be fathers. And yet God in his mercy called
us to that task. And so what we derive from our
account before us is this, that there's a way of fatherhood that
points to our heavenly father by which the status of fatherhood
is dignified. Men, you and I will never be
like our heavenly father. And yet at the same time in Christ,
we are called to be. like our Heavenly Father. And
while we will never attain that in our personhood, the comfort
is that we are also sons of a Father like this. What a glorious account. So I want you to follow me through
your outline. I want to share with you a number of principles
and we're going to enjoy the Lord's table today. Point number
one in your outline, The inheritance given the inheritance given the
boy said in verse 12 and the younger man said to his father
father Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me and
he divided unto him his living in my outline. Give me mine Selfishness
was anticipated there's a threefold purpose in this selfishness was
anticipated I don't know if I said it to you last week, but you
know, I Moms and dads we can really read our children pretty
well They don't think we can but we can't can't we we read
our children pretty well. We see them far off and I am
under the assumption that the father because of the way he
handled that boys request Was very clear that the boy was going
to come to him and ask for his inheritance You know how they
prepare to come to you. You're not a prepare. I You know
how the attitude shifts and changes and they start doing certain
things, but they don't know you see it But we see them right
for moms and dads. Our children are face to face
to us, right? Even when they're not in our presence. We're thinking
about them all the time. Am I making some sense? So when
they start coming we see them with their schemes and their
tricks and their plans and especially their niceties, right? When they
get nice, we know we got something coming, don't we? Well, all I'm saying is this,
when the father demonstrated those four attributes that I
shared with you last week, which was first of all, he didn't argue
with the boy. Don't argue with your sons and
your daughters when you see them for who they really are. Don't
argue. He didn't argue with the boy. He didn't reason with him.
He didn't toy with him. He knew the boy was resolved.
He also didn't affirm the boy in his dream. You know, we got
a lot of that going on today. Parents are scared that their
children have way too much power over them and if we don't just
give in to them like slaves and affirm them in every dream they
have, then somehow we're gonna be, you know, we're gonna pay
for it. Please listen to me. Everything
that your children are thinking or aspiring to is not right.
You don't have to endorse or agree the thoughts that are in
your children's mind if their agendas and their plans do not
amount to glorifying God in their life. If my children come to
me, dad, you know, man, I just feel like, uh, I feel like I'm
called to go work in a bar, you know, I'm just trying to give
you a gross. Yeah. I just feel like I can
mix drinks like nobody on planet earth. Somehow you know, I need
you to endorse me in this because I got a plan on making millions
of dollars No, I'm not endorsing you. That's a foolish thought. It does not honor God I'm not
endorsing you now You may break away and like we said last week
lose your mind and go that way if you want to but I'm not going
to endorse that foolish notion I'm helping you some parents And then what we learned was
the father just let him go. But he let him go because the
father had already done what God had told him to do. When
the boy said, give me mine, the confidence of the father was
when he gave him his, in terms of the wealth and the property
and all of those physical resources that he had, he also gave that
boy something else for which it gave the father confidence
to simply wait on that boy. Do you know what he gave him?
The inheritance of truth. He gave the boy the inheritance
of the gospel. He gave the boy the inheritance
of biblical teaching. See the boy said give me mine
and the father was rejoicing inside saying you don't know
I've already given it to you And what he had given that boy
was a hope for glory unbeknownst to that boy that was latent inside
the inheritance called the gospel for which even though that boy
took off headed headlong into his just unbridled lust, the
father was confident in the promises of God so that all the father
had to do, and this is the fifth thing that he did, was wait on
that boy. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
See, when you know you have done what you were supposed to do
and all you can do is all you can do, then all you do after
that is wait on God. See, you know what the Bible
tells me in Proverbs chapter 22 verse 15 and then back in
verse 6? Train up a child in the way that
he should go and in his old age, he will not depart from it. The
Bible lays out the principle of train them up in the fear
and in the nurture of the Lord. Write the law of God on their
heart and on their mind. Make it frontlets on their eyes
and make it anklets and bracelets on their hand so that they are
encumbered by biblical truth all the days of their young life.
So when they break out in their independence and autonomy, they
get away from you. What they can't get away from
is the truth of the word of God. They can't get away from the
truth of the word of God. And so even though he was selfish,
the hope of the father was the promise of the covenant. Turn
with me in your Bible to Jeremiah chapter 32. I want to read a
few of these promises just to encourage you parents to understand
God already anticipates our children losing their mind. Yes, he does. So prior to losing their mind
God sets up a GPS system a Tracking device By which when
they get lost The only person gets lost is them You didn't
hear that God sets up a tracking device a GPS system in the child
and who is destined for salvation, so that when they lose their
mind, God knows exactly where they are. what the Bible tells
me in Ezekiel chapter 32 I'm sorry Jeremiah 32 if I said Ezekiel
Jeremiah 32 verse 39 and 40 are these words these are precious
promises of God towards his people and you may hold these true for
yourself as well let me read verse 38 through verse 40 listen
to this and they shall be my people and I will be their God
and I will give them one heart and one way and that they may
fear me forever for the good of them and of their children
after them. Do you see verse 39? This is
the covenant that God makes with his elect. Watch this. I will
give them one heart and one way that they may worship me forever. Now watch this. Here's the promise
for the good of them. Here's the last clause. Are you
ready? And their children after them. I told you God's always
working in the next generation after you. that this is not about
you. That when you take on the office
of parenthood, you now are cooperating with God in the larger scheme
of multiplying His glory and His witness in the earth, starting
with your children. Every generation until Christ
comes has a body of elect sinners whom God is going to draw to
Himself through the gospel. And whether we know it or not,
He does it most often through the family. While God will on
exception save the sinner, apart from a believing family, He has
chosen according to the Word of God to work through families. This is why you see the Old Testament
lineage. This is why in the New Testament you see families coming
under the gospel, because that is the place where God sets up
His spiritual government. If children are going to learn
right, your school system is not going to teach them what's
right. This secular world system is not going to teach them what's
right. The television is not going to teach them what's right.
Listen to me carefully, saints. The only place our children will
hear the truth is from you. It's from you. And God promises,
he promises, he promises that he will be a God to you and to
your children. That's a promise principle in
scripture that we can hang on to. Watch this now, especially
if he gives us grace to teach our children right. If he gives
us grace to teach our children right, all you and I have to
do is believe God, watch this now, and do like this father
did, just wait on them. Because they gonna act a fool.
Just wait on them. wait on them I have more to say
about that here shortly listen to what it goes on to say in
verse 40 and I will make an everlasting covenant with them watch this
now that I will not turn away from them to do them good but
I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not what depart
from me isn't that good go with me in your Bible to Psalm 89
now I want you to see another one Psalm 89 Here's God speaking
to David about his purpose of redemption through David's line
to Jesus Christ, who is our ultimate subject. And in Psalm 89, we
have also this promise as well. I want to lay this out to you,
parents, and I am suggesting that The comfort and the calm
of the Father here in our parable is that he embraced the promises
of God, he relied upon the faithfulness of God, and therefore he rested
in the immutable counsel of God when it came to his prodigal
son. I would also suggest that you
do the same. In Psalm 89, listen to what verse
28 says through 33. Psalm 89. This is a word of God
to David and to us. Watch this now. My mercy will
I keep for him forever, and my covenant shall stand fast with
him. This is a psalm to david, but
it's pointing ultimately to christ. Look at verse 29 His seed also
will I make to endure forever And it's thrown as the days of
heaven. Do you guys see that? This is
the promise of god to david concerning christ now watch verse 30. Watch
this provisio This is very important children of god, particularly
moms and dad if his children do what forsake my law Look at
God. Look at God. Look at how he develops
a covenant with parameters that allow for the expectation of
our children to just go crazy. Isn't God good? If my children
or if his children forsake my law, and listen, we all have
done it. We all have done it. Now watch this. If his children
forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they break my
statutes and keep not my commandments, verse 32, are you ready? This
is the part that hurts, but it's good. Then will I visit their
transgressions with the what? And their iniquity with what?
Nevertheless. Nevertheless. So see parents,
you got to wake up. You've got to wake up to the
way God works. You've got to see the world through
God's eyes. You've got to put on the prism
of biblical truth. You've got to understand the
covenant. God doesn't have a problem with disciplining his children.
Forget what this psychological age says about the harm and hurt
that comes with chastising and correcting and putting parameters
and boundaries on our children. Forget it. God makes that part
of his redemptive plan. If my children rebel against
me, break my law, transgress against my statutes, I'm just
going to whip them. That's all. They're going to get a whipping.
Yeah, you can clap. Yeah, they're going to get a
whipping. I know I'm scaring some of you
to death. I know I'm scaring some of you to death. But all
God says, they're going to get a whipping. You know what the
scripture says in the Proverbs? He who spareth the rod hates
his son. Beat him. Are you ready? Watch this. And
don't spare for his much crying. For if you beat him with the
rod, see, I'm going to go to jail for this in about five years.
You will deliver his soul from death. Look at God. In every one of
us who loves the gospel and understands the superlative nature of this
set of statements, we realize that Christ is the son who bore
the wrath of God on Calvary's tree in order to retrieve every
one of us from our hell-bound state. Am I making some sense?
God puts it in the provision of the covenant. If they rebel
against me, I will visit them with the rod. iniquity upon stripes
upon their iniquity nevertheless my loving kindness will I not
utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my covenant
will not I break nor alter the thing that has gone out of my
lips once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie
unto Jesus Christ are you guys hearing me that I will not lie
unto Christ Everyone whom the father has given the son no matter
where they are in the world are coming to him But I'm telling
you there will be difficulties There will be difficulties because
when God brings a sinner to himself He's teaching everybody a lot
of things all at once You know Go back to to your text Luke
15, you know that when I know y'all don't do it anymore But
when you used to chastise your children, it's a it's a for God
that art is gone now But when you when you used to chastise
your children and discipline them remember how everybody in
the house Got got awakened by the judgment everybody Even the
people that didn't do anything wrong Got awakened by the and
now I'm not telling the truth. I Even the people that didn't even
do anything wrong got awakened by the judgment. But do you know
why they got awakened by the judgment? Because they were thinking
about doing something wrong. Now, if your heart is corrupt and the love of God has not taught
you wisdom, you don't like what I'm saying. If your heart is
corrupt and the love of God has not taught you wisdom, you don't
like what I'm saying. But I'm here to tell you that
the prodigal father was so content to wait on God to do his work
after he had taught that boy the truth that he was ready to
simply watch God be faithful to his own word. And I'm here
to tell you, I know you mothers and you fathers and more particularly
you mothers. I know how you rule the day when
your teenagers just start acting absolutely ballistics. But I
want you to know that God is faithful. You simply have to
believe God and wait, wait, wait, wait, wait on God. Let's go to our next point. Notice
what it says. Mercy and your outline of the things that accompany
true repentance. Do you see that last week? We
touched on this. I'm only going to be on this
lightly What happened when the boy left the text tells us in
verse 13 and not after many days later. He gathered everything
He took his journey went into a far country and there he wasted
his substance with riotous living I told you that that Greek term
riotous means unsaved unsaved living a lifestyle that said
that he was not safe And I wanted to warn you last week about a
romanticizing of sin and lightly esteeming the propensity of the
flesh. It is not right for you and I
to endorse this fallen culture and to suggest or even remotely
imply that it's all right for our children to live like hell.
Listen, no, no, no, no. Anytime our children depart from
the gospel, they are now objects of wrath visibly. Any time our
children begin to act or arrogate to themselves that they can live
in this world without God, they are marked out for judgment,
whether it's temporal or whether it's eternal. And that should
never ever be comfortable with you. You must stand your ground
with God, mama and dad. You must stand your ground with
God and let your children know to live one second without God
is mortally dangerous. And when you leave the gospel,
and you leave a gospel home, and you proceed to go out into
that world system, you are going out into a culture that is looking
forward to utterly demolishing you. Tearing you in pieces using
you and defrauding you and taking advantage of you and ripping
you off there's nothing out there in that wilderness world, but
snakes and Dragons and vipers and scorpions and they want to
destroy you now listen Because of the bent and the blindness
of the lust of our children's passion they're not gonna believe
you because the devil has already sprinkled that dust in their
eyes and And they're believing that they can actually negotiate
this world and be fairly safe. But they've got another thing
coming. Particularly if God marked them out for salvation. Particularly
if God laid his hand on them. That boy went out there, wasted
all of his money, made bad decisions, and the next thing you know,
he's in dire straits, isn't he? You remember how when they got
out there, and you didn't hear from him for about six months?
And then all of a sudden you got a phone call. Remember that?
Hi mama, how you doing? Oh, you broke now, huh? Remember
that? Oh, you broke now. But I want you to understand
how God works and it's necessary for us to grasp this. If God
is going to retrieve the impenitent, hard-headed sinner who has heard
the gospel, he's going to use providence. And providence is
God changing your circumstances. He will cause you to lose your
job. He'll cause you to find yourself in reverses and in conflicts
with people. He will increase your enemies
around you so that you are no longer at peace in that secular
environment. He will cause you to be disturbed
in your conscience. That's the next one. Because
you know now that you are essentially living in the very atmosphere
that your parents warned you about, of which you didn't see
it before, but now all of a sudden you see it for what it is. But
because of the pride that strengthens your fallen nature, you won't
call on God. Not yet. See, just like the Heavenly Father,
this Father here waited on His Son. He didn't go after Him.
He didn't send out spies to go check on them to see how he's
doing. That ain't faith. Let those kids go. God's watching. Are you hearing me? God's watching.
I used to have fits. When I uh when my my daughters
first started leaving the house, when my oldest daughter left,
I actually I actually went up to her college one time unbeknownst because I called her and she
didn't call me back. Now, you know, I was getting
ready to tear up all California. So I went all the way up to Sacramento
State to find her because she had just lost her mind for the
last time. See, I wasn't busy calling her.
I'm not one of those fathers that call and check in. Listen,
I'm working. So I'm not going to check in
on you a whole lot. You might even blame me for negligence.
But listen, you know, I know the Lord. He sits on this throne
and he controls all things. But I just needed to find out
because she hadn't called me in about three weeks. What you
up to? And if I call you, you better
call me back. So I went up there and found
out what she was doing. And I went on back home. I said,
I ain't doing this no more. I'm not going to waste my time
hunting down these children all over planet Earth. Lord, if you're
going to keep them, you're going to sure enough keep them. because
I'm going back and deal with the other ones that's in my house.
I'm giving you guys some very practical lessons because some
of you getting ready to go through this where your kids will not
call you. They won't let you know what
they're doing. Now you can surmise and you can speculate and you
can do all that and most likely it will be true and therefore
pray for them. Remember what Job did when his
kids began to demonstrate their autonomy and was partying all
over the place. Remember what Job 1 says? And
Job offered sacrifices for his children continually. What we
do as parents is we wait and we pray. We wait and we pray. We wait and we pray. But we're
not going to demonstrate to those children that our world is going
to collapse just because they left the house. No, no, no, no,
no. We want you to go. Don't get it twisted. We do want
you to go. We just want you to survive when
you get out there. And because I'm still your parent,
I'm there to help if you come right. If you don't come right,
I might not help you. But if you come right, I'm here
to help you. So I'm helping some of you young parents. It's very
important. When God is getting ready, to break that that that
object of his mercy down as this prodigal he changes the situations
providentially and then he starts to plague their conscience and
this is where the awakening to the pig sty is so critically
important listen to what the text says in verse 15 and he
went and joined himself to a citizen of that country See, before he
was independent in the country, but when he lost everything,
he hired himself out as a slave to one of the citizens of that
country. And we learned last week, didn't we? The people of
this world, when they see that you really need them, they will
make you ambassadors of their field. You will become agents
of the perversions of this world system. They will find out how
much you are willing to give up of your dignity, of your character,
of your background, of your lineage, of your knowledge of God for
the superficial material things of this life. How many formerly
religious folks have become secular whores in this world system that
you and I know? I mean secular prostitutes. And
the devil will pay you well. The devil will pay you well.
To be one of those visible objects that stuck your fist in God's
face and says I don't need God The devil will pay you well for
that because now you have become the devil incarnate Am I telling
the truth? So our sons and daughters are
in for a world of trouble If it were not for the grace of
God This boy joined himself to this man, and this man sent him
out to feed the swine. Now, our master knew precisely
why he used this depiction, because for the Jewish culture, feeding
swine was an abomination. In the law of Leviticus, if it
didn't divide the huff and if it didn't chew the cud, you were
not supposed to touch it. In both, the dividing of the
huff and the chewing of the cud means exercising spiritual discernment. To divide the hoof is to be able
to discern between the right way and the wrong way. It has
to do with your walk. To chew the cud is for you to
be able to exercise your senses on what's right and wrong rather
than just indiscriminately eating something like the dog does.
You and I are to chew the cud. Let me see if this thing that
they're saying is true or not. Let me wait this out whether
or not this notion this idea this Assumption this doctrine
this teaching really comports with the Word of God. Am I making
some sense clean animals are discerning animals and particularly
She and so he's out there Sweeting feeding the swine in the Texas
and he would have fade filled his belly with the husk that
the swine did eat Now, what does that mean? He was hungry And
he was also tempted to engage in the same damnable doctrine,
practice, and culture of which he was now propagating as a slave. But I'm here to tell you, God
had mercy on that boy. You know what I'm saying? I'm
saying this, that when God has chosen you unto salvation, there
are certain things, I don't care how bad your circumstances get,
there are certain things that God will keep you from, Are you
hearing me? That's the way God works. There
are certain things He will keep you from. He will keep you from
blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. God will never let His elect
blaspheme God. He will never let His elect speak
about Christ as if Christ is utterly demonic. He won't let
it happen. He won't let our spirits engage in those irretrievable
sins. that are rooted in the life of
men and women who are destined to perish because they hate God.
See, God puts the handcuffs of grace on you, and he lets you
go so far and no further. Are you guys hearing me? He protects
your conscience. He protects your conscience.
He protects you. He lets you learn that you are
a desperate, hell-bound sinner. No one's gonna tell God's elect
that they're not. No one's gonna tell me that I
I am the worst sinner on planet earth if it wasn't for the mercy
of God And the only reason I'm not worse is because God is holding
me back and you too And see so he will teach you the truth of
the gospel while you're out there What does the scripture say and
when he the spirit of truth has come he will convince the world
of what sin? Sometimes even after conversion
God has to take you through a bunch of mess for you to come to believe
the doctrine of absolute and total depravity You will learn
You will learn that salvation is by the grace of God alone
and that in us by nature dwells no good things You will learn
that and this boy is tempted. He's on the precipice of going
over but god won't let him do it Look at god Look at god. He would feign a field his belly
with the husk of the swine, but in god's providence, you know
what happened? He gave those wicked people over with whom
he was engaged to being so selfish that they would not allow him
to eat the swine food Isn't God good? You're starving to death. You would eat but God keeps the
wicked from closing with you Because he plans on retrieving
your soul See and here's the thing we know I know this from
experience with people That when people lose their mind and they
are objects of God's mercy and grace and they get out there
in that world They are the most miserable sinner on planet Earth
There is no one more miserable than the person who has come
to a knowledge of the truth and has lived a life in total opposition
to that. Nothing more miserable. I'm going
to be talking about this on our Monday show. Faith mixed with
addictive behavior patterns because that's a major sort of a preoccupation
in the mind of a lot of people. How is it that I can be redeemed
by the grace of God and go through so much trouble with internal
addictions? with addictions of this and addictions
of that and struggles here and struggles there. Well, if you're
born again, it's because you are simultaneously sinful and
righteous at the same time. And you're going to have to do
some things to get a handle on your addictive behavior patterns
so you can live for the glory of God. Are you hearing what
I'm saying? And if you should think that you're going to outsmart
God by twisting scripture, you know what God will do? Let you
go. let you run for a little bit until you hit your head up
against the wall and bow down to a sovereign God whose word
is right and all his works are done and true. He'll teach you
how to rightly divide his word. And so this prodigal finds himself
in verse 17 in the way of repentance. And when he had came to himself,
do you see that? The literal phrase is when he
had come to himself. You know what God has to do when
he's bringing you to a place of repentance? He has to cause
you to take a 180 degree turn so that what you see is yourself
the way God sees you. And once you see yourself the
way God sees you, you will stop making excuses about why you
are in the trouble that you're in. You and I can be sure that
we are not in a state of repentance. That is, our mind has not been
properly changed by the truth of God's word until we agree
with God that the problem begins with me. You know how people
argue about the problem was the mom and their daddy, the problem
was the culture, the problem was the environment, the problem
was the school, the problem was the fact that they were broke.
You got all this stuff going on. These are all political schemes
by which governments and politicians make a bunch of money pretending
to fix problems that at their core are rooted in our character,
which is rooted in our sin nature, of which the only way that can
be resolved is by the grace of God. Otherwise, we will be pouring
money into a black hole forever and ever never ever beginning
to fix those problems and see God has to save you from yourself
and That's where he starts See, I know God is dealing with you
in the truth of the gospel when you come to realize You are the
one in need of mercy When I'm hearing you talking about this
church or that church or that set of doctrines or those people
or that individual, I'm worried whether or not you have seen
the glory of God. Has God revealed his glory to
you? Has he laid you low and put your hand over your mouth
like Job did and said, I'm dust and ashes? It's me, it's my problem. My eyes, my ear did hear of you,
but now I have seen you. And the reality is I am the one
with the problem. That's how grace begins to work. Isn't that right? Grace begins
to show you that you're a sinner. And in our account, what the
Spirit of God begun to do in this boy's life was to cause
him to think through the blessing of being at home. Look at verse
17. And when he had come to himself, he said, how many hired servants
of my father's house have bread enough to spare and I perish
with hunger. Do you see that? Oh, now he start
thinking about the favorable conditions of home. It was always
that way. It was always that way. The kingdom
of God is a place where God's resources are always available
for his people. the resources of His grace, the
resources of His mercy, the resources of His goodness, the resources
of His wisdom, the resources of His righteousness, the resources
of His presence and His power to work in your life. The kingdom
of God and insufficiency are mutually exclusive. There is
always resources in the kingdom of God. Only, as we learned last
week, that boy had become unthankful. and unthankfulness is the start
of your apostasy. When you become unthankful for
the gifts and graces of God, he's getting ready to show you
the problem is with you. And so that boy began to surmise
that even the hired servants, and the way the Greek renders
this word hired servants, it's not people that were living in
the house every day. These were hired servants, day
laborers, people that would just come up for the day and do a
job and get paid and leave. What is he doing? He's longing
now to be home He's longing to go home. He's longing To return
to his father now watch this listen to how the language goes
in verse 18 I will arise and go to my father and I will say
unto him father I have sinned against heaven and before thee
and am no more worthy to be called your son Make me as one of the
hired servants point number three in our outline. Are you there?
mercy makes no demands. See, if you and I are going to
be saved, it's going to amount to the mercy of God. When we
begin to negotiate the salvation of our soul, having come into
a knowledge of the truth, here's what you are negotiating. That
God would be pleased to look upon you in mercy on no other
grounds than but the blood and righteousness of his own son,
Jesus Christ. That God would be pleased to
save me, are you ready? In spite of myself. That God
would reach out and do something for me that is contrary to what
I deserve. Mercy never negotiates with God
on the grounds of something to bring to the table. Mercy never
says, if you do this for me, I'll do that for you. The boy
did not think in his mind that, you know, I still have some resources
to bring to this. I'll talk to my dad about how
it used to be. He's not even thinking that way.
In fact, he has said to himself, I'm not worthy to be his son.
I don't know who I was. I was talking in our men's group
about this last night. We were dealing with the apostle
Paul, what made Paul so eminently useful in the ministry of the
gospel. The apostle Paul was two things. The power of God
rested mightily upon him and it was just it was unarguable
that God used him mightily But also God had humbled him greatly
The Apostle Paul was a very humble man and listen to me children
of God humility Will cause the proud to stumble Humility will
cause the proud to stumble. We got a lot of a lot of proud
people in religion and Sometimes you and I can be proud And when
we put on the prism of proud glasses and we see humility,
we can despise it. We can despise the humility in
the character and disposition of a person and view it as weakness.
And then misjudge it. And yet, here's what I'm saying.
Humility is critical to God using you. He always resists the proud. He only gives grace to the humble. Now, I want to help you with
that. Learn to define humbleness according to the scriptures,
because if you define humbleness the wrong way, most likely you
will get it wrong. Humbleness in God's eyes is God
dealing with the true nature and character of the person that
he is addressing. You may not see it, but when
God is humbling a person, it is between them and God. When
God humbles a man, when God humbles a woman, between them and God
and nobody else is the reality that that person has completely
capitulated, completely relinquished all rights, completely have just
laid themselves prostate before God. God, you rule. God you rule
everything you say is right everything you do is right listen to the
words have your way now other people may not be able to interpret
that but God knows and that's the beginning of your usefulness
before God when he brings you to the place of you saying have
your way have your way the boy is requesting this as he thinks
about returning to his father. Mercy makes no demands. Mercy
does not seek its rights. Mercy seeks, are you ready? Mercy. There is no merit in its request. The Bible tells us we are saved
that way, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but by his
what? Mercy. Have he saved us? I'm reminded of the publican
in Luke 18. You don't have to go there. Remember
how he came to God? He didn't even lift his head
to heaven. Now, you know, you've been humble when you don't lift
your head to heaven. He just kept his head bowed and he said,
Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. And our master said he went home
justified by the grace of God. What a transaction, what a transaction. What a transaction! And there
was no outward glory by which you and I can set up a pattern
of theology by which we can assure people justification. All there
was was the earnest plea from the depths of his soul for God
to be merciful to him, and God justified him. God justified
him. Do you know what kind of peace
that soul had when it left the temple and went home? It had
the peace of God that passeth understanding Which keeps your
heart in mind in Christ Jesus when you bow the knee to God
and acknowledge God's sovereignty That's what happened to that
man. That's what happened to him. All right, let's move on
point number four the father's faithful act the father's faithful
act in my outline the father's faithfulness verse 20 listen
to what it says and he arose and he came to his father but
when he was yet a great way off his father what saw him what kind of father did he have
he had a father who was so concerned about him that he watched him
in his mind's eye and he watched for him, for him to return. His father saw him in his state
of repentance. His father saw him returning
to him. His father saw him, listen to
me saints, afar off. In other words, the father didn't
just leave the boy alone and go live out his own selfish life.
You know how some parents are? Look, it's 18 hit the dojack
if you can make it cool, but don't come back I'm doing my
thing now because all the kids are gone. You know, that's the
attitude of a lot of parents But this man waited on his son
and when his son began to come home Way down the road now again
this is a rhetorical device because how far can human eyes look to
see someone coming and but it's designed to teach you how that
God the Father's interest in our salvation is rooted in our
repentance. Will you hear me? God the Father's
interest in our salvation is rooted in our repentance. The
story is about repentance, isn't it? It's about the repentance
of sinners, isn't it? And it's about how the heavens
rejoice at one sinner that what? Repents. I want you to hear me
now. Here's the question that I'm going to raise. Follow this
now. How far does God look to see the sinner who begins
to repent? Isn't that a good proposition?
How far does he look? He looks so far that he sees
you at the beginning of your repentance. At the thought of
repentance. At the notion of turning. the
point of reasoning within yourself, I'm lost. At that place where
you begin to agree with the Word of God in your soul, I am a sinner. At that point where you come
to understand the reasonableness, yea, the glory of the preaching
of the cross, you know the gospel is true. You know what? I do
need Christ. At that point where you begin
to get a glimpse of the glory of the atoning work of Jesus
Christ as your only propitiation for sin. At that place where
the blood of the Lamb now starts to become, are you ready? Precious
for you. See, the gospel is a sinner's
gospel. It's for sinners. It's for real
sinners. It's for needy sinners. The goal
of the gospel is to break you down. It's to catch you in your
deepest, darkest pit and begin to turn you around and to negotiate
with you and to give you that toe line to pull you out of the
pit. That's where God sees you. What
are you saying, pastor? What does that amount to? God
sees the repentant sinner afar off because he sees him in Christ. Let me help you. God sees the
repentant sinner in Christ because it was Christ who won their repentance. No one turns or comes to God,
but through Christ. Are you guys hearing me? No one
comes to a right thought about the glory of God and the gospel
of God, but in Christ. God does not see the sinner turning
and coming to him outside of Christ. He only sees us in Christ. And to see us in Christ is to
see us afar off. Afar off. Afar in the pit of
hell. In the blackness of our sin.
In the stench and depravity of our wickedness. Right where Christ
must come to get you. right where Christ must come
to get you. You will never halfway climb
out of the pit and say you helped Christ save you. He must come
all the way down into the pit where you are. Am I telling the
truth? Isn't that what Job says? Isn't
that what he says? Deliver that man's soul from
the pit. I have found a ransom for his
soul. I have found a ransom for his
soul. And when a man begins to turn
from his sin and begins to agree with God, it's because God has
found a ransom for his soul. He has already made atonement
for his sin. The Spirit of God is already
hunting him down and bringing him back. Now this is good encouragement
because a lot of you are extremely sensitive to the dynamics of
repentance And some of you will turn repentance into legalism
and words And you won't close with christ as you perceive it
in your own mind until your repentance Corresponds to what you think
is a biblical sound and comprehensive and total repentance But i'm
here to tell you every aspect of repentance is from the lord
every aspect of it Even the thought of repentance is from the Lord.
The inclination is from the Lord. The reasoning is from the Lord.
Let alone the, I will arise and go to my father. Boy, that's
great repentance. Do you understand that Greek
word is rooted in the word for the resurrection? And see, the
only reason that you begin to get up in your mind and come
back to God is because of the resurrection of Christ. Because
when He rose from the dead, having gone to hell on your behalf.
See, you haven't gone to hell yet. You should, but you haven't
before you hit the bottom. The Son of God in the resurrection,
on His way back up, grabbed ahold of you. He grabbed ahold of you. He grabbed ahold of you. That's
Ephesians 2, verses 5 and 6. you and you and you hath he quickened
together with Christ and Raised us up and set us in heavenly
places in Christ by grace. Are you saying what are you saying
pastor? even your repentance is a product of the atonement
the death the resurrection and the ascension of a successful
Savior who stood as your substitute we repent of We repent because
Christ was successful in his redemptive work on Calvary. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? Therefore, repentance, repentance
is of the utmost importance to God. The father stood and waited
for his boy to come back. Look at it. Look at it. Isn't
this glorious? You had no father like this.
See, I'll sleep on my kids and you will too. I just want you
to know, I don't see, I don't even remotely think I'm by myself.
I know I'm bad, but I know my church is bad as I am. I know
you bad as I am. Some of you will sleep and the
kids will come knocking on the door and you're sleeping so heavy
you won't even hear him knock, but I'll hear him knocking. I've
been through enough trouble to know that you gotta sleep light
in these days. This father didn't even sleep. He saw him afar off. Now watch this, I only have a
few more things to say. He arose, he came to his father,
but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. And
here it is, are you ready? He had what? Compassion. He had
compassion on him. And he what? Ran and fell on
his neck and kissed him. He ran and fell on his neck and
kissed him. This is absolutely phenomenal.
our outline concerning the faithfulness of God our point number six actually
the compassion and confirmation of God in the gospel what are
you talking about preacher here's what I'm talking about the parable
of the sheep and the shepherds and the shepherd and the sheep
is the objective work that Christ accomplished when he went to
Calvary Street to retrieve our souls from damnation we could
rightly look at that first parable as the total objective successful
work of Jesus Christ to retrieve the souls of every one of his
people whom he had died for. You and I didn't know that we
were retrieved in Christ 2,000 years ago, but we were. In the
parable of the woman with the coin, now we move into much more
of a sensible recognition of us being retrieved or delivered
by God in the sweeping ministry of the woman. Remember, that's
doctrine, that's teaching, seeking out the dead coin, hitting that
coin, waiting for the noise. For when you and I are coming
to a place of returning to God, we first must hear the gospel. You're not coming to God without
a knowledge of Christ. So there is an instrumental means
by which repentance takes place. Isn't that true? I have to hear
the word. The word has to break my heart.
It is a two-edged sword. It has to cut asunder. It has
to break my stony heart. But then there is the subjective
experiential work of returning to the Father. That boy was headed
home. And you could imagine the long-distance
journey and the things that were going on in his mind. He had
already articulated to us, I don't know what my father is going
to think when I get home. I done made a royal mess out
of everything. He could reject me at the door.
He could send me backpacking. He could be just as mad at me
now as I was at him when I left. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? I'm broken, I'm repentant, I'm desiring mercy. But listen,
mercy does not assume that it will get mercy. So even though
I'm coming to the Father, I'm coming to the Father, I'm coming
to the Father, and I know this of you because I know it of myself.
There is nothing in us that says just because we come to the Father,
He has to receive us. Am I telling the truth? He does
not have to receive you. Mercy never says he's got to
receive me. That would be arrogance. Watch
this. Mercy hopes. Mercy hopes. Mercy hopes. Mercy hopes. Mercy hopes. He's headed home in hope. In
hope. And his daddy is sensitive enough
to know that this boy has really negotiated some things to come
back in humility, to come back broke, to come back raggedy.
He's barefooted, ain't got no clothes. He look bad. and his
father's heart pours out to him and hunts him down, meets him
halfway. Are you guys hearing me? I'm
cold, you guys fix this air condition. My brothers and sisters are freezing
too. You come fix this air condition. He meets him there and listen
to me, that's what the gospel does. The gospel is true, it's
objective, right all by itself if it never ever lands on your
heart but the goal of God in the redemption of sinners is
for you and I to feel the forgiveness of sins in our soul through the
kisses of the truth of the gospel in Christ the goal of the Spirit
of God is to bring home to your heart to your heart to your soul. Are you ready? Your sins are
forgiven. I will remember your sins and
iniquity no more. As the east is far to the west,
so will I remember your transgressions no more. I will cast them behind
my back in the depths of the forgetfulness in the sea where
I will remember them no more. God says I will blot out your
transgression. I will blot them out as a thick
cloud. You will never see them again.
And where remission of these is, there is no more. I'm sorry,
where the removal of these are, there is no more remission of
sin. You don't ever have to worry about me punishing you again. Never, never, never. And the soul that's in need of
salvation senses that in the depths of his being. And there
is a liberty that takes place when the soul hears the grace
of God like that. The father lay on his neck and
kissed him and kept kissing him and kept kissing him and kept
kissing him so much so that he could barely get out the words,
father, I'm not worthy to be called your son. And let's throw
a party. My boy's home. Isn't that what
the text says? Do you see it? Let's throw a
party in my boy's home. Intentionally, the Lord cuts
off his words because it didn't make any sense to the father.
That was a proposition that was a non-negotiable. The next thing
that boy knows, and this here is a good lesson for you and
me. As soon as the gospel comes in power and the forgiveness
of sins, God doesn't leave us in limbo. where we are questioning
whether or not we are fully accepted with God. Which brings me to
my last point. God has no stepchildren. Do you
see that? I had to use a good ghetto line
with that. God doesn't have any stepchildren. When God saves
a sinner, he saves a sinner in a most prodigal way. Are you
hearing me? See, prodigal meaning wasteful.
Wasteful indiscriminate just just just just indiscriminate
wastefulness like the boy went out and wasted his part of the
inheritance So when the father retrieves a lost sinner a prodigal
and brings him into the bosom of his mercy and grace He is
lavishing upon us lavishing upon us mercy and grace and forgiveness
and justification and acceptance before God in Christ so that
the bounty is far more than the waste we engaged in when we were
in our sin. Do you see that? Do you see that? Do you see what he did? He said,
hey, listen, go get the best robe. Don't go just get a robe. Get him the best robe. Why did
he do that? Because reconciliation is bringing
the lost sinner into a status of sonship equal to Jesus Christ. The robe represents Christ's
righteousness. When God retrieves a sinner,
He clothes him in Christ's righteousness. How pleased is God with Christ's
righteousness? Infinitely pleased with it. Infinitely
pleased with it. Hey, by the way, get him another
ring. I see he sold his ring too. Get
him another ring. And what does the ring represent?
It represents the authority of the sons with the father. Give
him his authority back. Let him know he's a son of God.
Let him know he still has all of the riches of the inheritance
of grace that I had for him before he left. That's called restoration. Restoration. And by the way,
look at his feet. His feet look bad. Put some shoes on his feet.
Put some shoes on his feet. Restore him to the standing,
because that's what the sandals mean. Restore him to the standing
with this family that he had before he left. In fact, I would
say that he is more gloriously arrayed now than when he left. That's how important the repentance
of sinners is to the Father. Does heaven rejoice? at the repentance
of sinners? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. And may God teach
you and me to rejoice at the repentance of sinners just like
that. Amen. Amen.