Spiritual Pharisees, Luke 16:14-18

As we have been looking at the last few chapters, we have noticed a steady downward progression in the attitude of the scribes and Pharisees towards Jesus and His gospel which He has been preaching.  At first, there was a curiosity on the part of the Pharisees towards Jesus.  They heard great crowds were following Him.  They heard that He was supposed to be a great teacher.  They heard about some of the miracles that He was doing.  And so they had a certain curiosity to see what He was doing.

Then that curiosity progressed to the point of becoming offended by Him.  When they got past the novelty of Him and His preaching they began to understand that often He was condemning them as well.  That was an uncomfortable position to be in. They were used to having people compliment them because of how religious they were.  They were used to people noticing their good works.  And so when Jesus lumps them into the same territory as all the rest of the sinners they were offended.

In this case, it says in verse 14 that they were offended because they were lovers of money.  That means that they loved the currency of the world.  They were living to satisfy their carnal desires with the things that money could buy and yet putting up a religious veneer of self righteousness before men.

Soon that offended attitude morphed into an attitude of finding fault.  They began to try to pick at His message.  They found fault with His disciples.  They tried to find something that He was doing wrong so that they could justify themselves.  His message made them feel guilty, so they tried to find fault with Him so they could feel better about themselves.

And then by the time we get to the last chapter, 15:2, you read that they began to grumble about Him.  That means they began to vocalize their irritation.  They began to complain, to talk about Him behind His back.  They tried to tear down His reputation.  They tried to influence others to turn away from Him by speaking ill of Him.

Now today, as we look at this passage, we see that their grumbling has turned to scorn.  They began to scoff at Him.   That means they began to openly ridicule Him.  Their attitude towards Him was worsening.  It was a growing hatred that began to come out in open, public ridicule.  The Pharisees had rejected His message, they had rejected that He was the Messiah, and they are on the way to full blown hatred.

And as we continue in this gospel, we will see their hatred worsen until they reach the point of plotting His murder.  And as you know, that culminates in actually carrying out the plan to murder the Son of God by having Rome hang Him on a cross.

Listen, this should illustrate the danger of rejecting the gospel.  The danger is that as Jesus Himself said, “you are either for Me or against Me.”  It says in 1 Samuel 15 that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.  Jesus also recognized rebellion as a manifestation of the works of Satan.  That’s why He said to the Pharisees in John 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.”  The rejection of the truth and believing a lie results in the attitude of a murderer.  And in the case of the Pharisees, they eventually act on that murderous attitude.

What a warning that should be for all of us.  In today’s relativistic society, we don’t want to believe in absolute truth.  Nothing makes the agnostic or atheist more mad than to be told that there is a God in heaven that has given us His word and that His word is absolute truth.  The world hates Christians because we believe that there is absolute truth and that truth condemns their sin.

But listen, there is another danger, and that is to put this attitude at arms length and see it as a fault of others, or see it as something that really only applies in a historical context to an extinct type of religious zealots called Pharisees, and so therefore find ourselves excused.  The danger is in thinking that this doesn’t apply to you.  But let me assure you that there are still Pharisees today in the spiritual sense of the word.  The Pharisees were much more like you and I than we would care to admit.  They believed in God.  They went to the temple regularly.  They tithed.  They fasted.  They prayed a lot, especially in public.  They read the scriptures regularly.  They even memorized large sections of it.  They were very moral people.  They kept the ten commandments.  And they participated in philanthropic events.   They did good deeds.

And yet they rejected God’s word and that rebellion grew into a hatred that eventually conspired to kill the Son of God.  Now I’m telling you that there are spiritual Pharisees alive and well in the church today.  Even in so called evangelical Christianity there is a large cross section of the church that fits the description of a Pharisee.  They believe in God.  They go to church regularly.  They tithe occasionally.  They fast on Lent.  They like to pray in public.  They even read the scriptures now and then.  They love to champion a particular religious themed book or movie.  They are considered good moral people in the community.  They appear to keep the ten commandments.  They participate in philanthropic events.  They do good deeds.  And yet I tell you that they are as rebellious Pharisees.  They are carnal and love the mammon of this world.  And in order to satisfy their desires they have rejected the complete truth of the gospel for a partial gospel, and they are in danger of having that rebellion against the truth escalate into grumbling, into scorn, and even outright hatred for the absolute truth of God’s word and His messengers.

Listen folks, you cannot separate God from His word.  You cannot pick and choose the character attributes of God that you prefer and discard the rest.  You cannot carve out a God of your own design without resulting in idol worship.  To reject the truth of God is to reject God Himself and by extension to crucify Jesus Christ.  

Please understand the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel starts with the law.  You cannot separate the God of justice from the God of love.  Everyone wants the God of love.  But as modern day evangelicals we recoil at the thought of the God of justice, of holiness and of righteousness that cannot tolerate sin. But when we reject the God of justice and extract those passages from scripture that sustain our doctrine of love, then actually we are rejecting the God of the Bible.

I know that it seems as though the doctrine of justice and the doctrine of love are polar opposites.  We would like to discard God’s justice and just focus on love.  But God cannot and will not be divided.  God’s love and God’s justice were met together at the cross.  That is where the justice and the wrath of God was poured out upon His only Son, so that we might be shown the love of God which results in salvation.  But one cannot exist without the other.  And any so called gospel which denies the one in favor of the other is to hold to the standards of the Pharisees.  And there are many today that are spiritual Pharisees.  Holding to a form of religion, but denying the power of it.  Denying the truth of the gospel while trying to hold on to part of it.

And that is why a lot of people have come to this church for a while, curious, intrigued by the novelty of being on the beach, having some interest in worshipping God.  But having that interest tempered by their own image of God which they have formed according to their own desires, that they might satisfy the lusts of the flesh without guilt.  And that is why so many have come and gone.  That is why some people’s attitudes have progressed from curiosity to becoming offended by my preaching concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.  And that is why their attitude has degenerated to the point of grumbling and outright scorn and ridicule and even hatred.

So there is still today a type of spiritual Pharisee in the church.  And in addressing this attitude of the Pharisees which has progressed to open scoffing and derision of the gospel,  Jesus presents a couple of principles and then an illustration which characterize spiritual Pharisees.

The first principle is spiritual Pharisees justify themselves to men, but  not to God. Vs. 15, “And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.”  Paul spoke of this same principle in 2Cor. 10:12
“For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”  

The problem is that spiritual Pharisees have a wrong standard; they measure themselves by themselves.  They compare themselves to one another, to the guy down the street.  They see themselves as better than others because they are using the wrong standard.  That is the standard  of relativism.  That’s the standard of the culture.  It’s the standard of what seems right in their own eyes.  The standard of what they think should be important or not important to God.

This standard is not based on the word of God, it’s not based on God’s standard, but it’s based on what they collectively have extracted or redacted from the word of God to produce their own version of the truth.  Paul says such people lack understanding.  He says in Romans 10:3 “For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”

God established the standard of righteousness in the Law.  That is where the attributes of a holy God are established.  The law is where the standards of righteousness are established.  The law is the beginning of the gospel.  It shows us our sinfulness and causes the repentant to fly unto Christ as His Savior.  But the spiritual Pharisee has either eliminated the law altogether or altered it to meet his own specifications.  He refuses to accept God’s standard, and so he is without understanding of who God is, and actually ends up rebelling against God, scoffing at God’s standards.

Such an attitude may justify you in the sight of men.  People may think you are really religious as they observe your rituals.  They may think you are really spiritual as they witness your external veneer of religion.  But Jesus says, “But God knows your hearts.”  God knows if you have really repented or not.  He knows when you refuse to bow the knee to God because you want to hold on to your sin.  Such was the case with the Pharisees.  They had altered the law.  They had lawyers work out the extent of the law so that they could appear to be keeping it, but in fact work it to their advantage.  But God knows the hearts.  He knows the motivation.  As Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount, if you hate your brother you are guilty of murder.  If you lust for a woman in your heart you are guilty of adultery.  God knows your heart.  He knows your motives.  He knows your thoughts.

Jesus condemns this kind of self justification in Matt. 23:25.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.  You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”  This is where spiritual Pharisees go wrong.  They  seek justification from men before justification before God.  And so they go about cleaning the exterior, doing good works, cleaning up their act, turning over a new leaf, quitting drinking, etc., but they have never been cleansed from within.  Jesus said clean the inside first, and then the outside may become clean also.  And the only way to be clean on the inside is by repentance of your sins and completely humbling yourself before God by faith in Christ, resulting in forgiveness.  Then when the inside is clean, the outside can become clean.  That is the process of sanctification where by the Spirit of God working in you conforms you to the image of Jesus Christ.  Don’t be deceived, God desires good works.  That is why we are saved. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  But good deeds is a result of working out your salvation, not the means of working for your salvation.  The inside must be  supernaturally cleaned first.

The second principle of a spiritual Pharisee is they are unwilling to pay the price of becoming a disciple.  Now this principle is couched in a rather obscure statement that Jesus made concerning the law in vs. 16; “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.” Here is the way to understand this verse.  Remember He is addressing the Pharisees.  They believed they were accepted by God because of their nationality.  The Law and the Prophets refers to the Old Testament covenant which was given to the Jews.  It was given to the children of Abraham through Moses to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai.  And so there was a degree of entitlement that these Pharisees had because they traced their lineage back to Abraham. They thought they were born into the kingdom of God.  They were true Jews and everyone else was in their eyes considered a sinner.   Furthermore, they thought that they were entitled to the kingdom because they were circumcised.  This was probably the most important law of all in their minds.  You could not even enter the temple grounds unless you had been circumcised.  The rabbis actually taught that Father Abraham stood at the gates of Hades and checked to make sure that no circumcised Jews entered into hell.

So these were the two pillars of Judaism that the Pharisees rested upon. Their nationality and their circumcision.  Both of them outward, external signs of their self righteousness.  And thirdly, there was the keeping of the rest of the law.  However, they had added volumes to the law in writings called the Mishna which on the surface had the appearance of being fastidious in keeping the law, but in reality had limited the law, and provided ways of getting around the law of God.  But in their minds at least, and in the minds of others, they thought they were keeping the law.  The bottom line was that the Pharisees rejected the gospel, because they saw no need for repentance. They thought they were in the kingdom. It was theirs by right, by virtue of keeping certain requirements of the covenant.  That’s why Jesus tells a leader of the Pharisees named Nicodemus that in order to enter the kingdom of God he needed to born all over again.  His nationality counted for nothing.

So Jesus contrasts that attitude of entitlement with the gospel of repentance.  He says the old covenant was taught until John the Baptist, but since then the gospel of repentance has been preached, and those that heeded that call to repentance are rushing to it.  The idea is that while Pharisees rejected the gospel in their self righteousness, meanwhile sinners were forcing their way into the kingdom out of their desperation.  

This principle is found in chapter 15 when Jesus gave three parables; the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son.  In each case, the one that was lost was accepted back into the house, in other words accepted into the kingdom with great celebration and rejoicing.  Jesus said that heaven rejoiced over one sinner that repents rather than those 9 or 99 or the one brother who needed no repentance.  Because the door to the kingdom of heaven is none other than Jesus Christ, and you enter that door by faith in His ability to pay for your sins and repentance from your sins.  That is why Jesus said He came to seek and to save those that were lost.  Quite simply, you cannot be saved unless you first realize you are lost.  It doesn’t matter what kind of external  actions you have done which justify you in the sight of other men.  What justifies you before God is a broken and contrite heart that throws oneself in desperation at the feet of Jesus and begs for forgiveness.  That person that is willing to count the cost of leaving the world, leaving the lusts of the world, forsaking the pride of life, the pursuit of money, the pursuit of career, in total surrender, in desperation coming to Christ for forgiveness.  That is who the kingdom of God belongs to.

The principle goes back even to chapter 14:27 when Jesus said, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”  It refers to vs. 33 when Jesus said, “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” It goes back to vs. 26 when Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”  Those that are willing to do whatever it takes, to surrender everything, those are the ones that are forcing their way into the kingdom, while the self righteous, the complacent, and the self justified are unwilling to surrender everything and so are outside.

I’m afraid that spiritual Pharisees are still taking that attitude even today in the church.  They have an attitude of entitlement.  We have a version of the gospel that is prevalent today among many evangelicals which is that as Americans we are the recipients of God’s grace.  We call ourselves a Christian nation.  We think that God owes us an upper middle class version of the prosperity gospel.  It’s too bad for the poor Christians being martyred for their faith in other parts of the world like the Middle East or Far East.  But we are the favored ones.  We have an inside track with God and if you just claim some sort of relationship to God based on feelings or good works or whatever then God is obligated to make all your dreams come true.  It’s not that different than what the Pharisees believed.  Spiritual Pharisees are not willing to pay any price of carnality for the kingdom of God.  They want their heaven on earth and eternity too.  But Jesus makes it clear that you can’t have both, you can’t serve God and mammon.

Then Jesus adds the statement found in vs. 17 which is a segue to the following illustration.  He says in vs. 17, “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.”  I heard one linguist expert say it like this;  not one little stroke (jot or tittle) of a letter refers to something like the difference between the capital letter F and the capital letter E.  That one little stroke that distinguishes a capital F from a capital E.  It would be easier in the sight of God for all the heavens, all the sun, moon and stars to be swept away into oblivion than to eliminate one little part of just one letter of the law.

Now that should give us a glimpse of how important God considers His law.  As I said earlier, the law presents the standard of God.  It’s unattainable.  It’s beyond our reach.  The law condemns us and shows us our need for a Savior.  Jesus said in Matt. 5:17, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”

Listen, what Jesus is teaching in this passage is that yes, the old covenant taught the law and the prophets, and then since John the gospel of Christ is preached, but God hasn’t stopped counting sin.  God hasn’t stopped counting trespasses.  God just counts them against Jesus Christ.  For those that come to Him in repentance and faith, surrendering everything to follow Him, God counts our sins upon Jesus and transfers His righteousness upon us.  Jesus didn’t do away with the Law.  Jesus kept the law perfectly.  He was the only person to ever do so.  And He did it as a man, that we might be saved through faith in Him.  2Cor. 5: 21 says, “God made Him (that is Jesus) who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Then finally, Jesus gives an illustration of the statement that He made concerning the law; that not even the smallest part of the law can be annulled or done away with.  And this illustration must have hit these Pharisees pretty hard, because it was an illustration of exactly the way that the Pharisees had adjusted the law to accommodate their lusts.

Jesus says in vs. 18, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”  Jesus is referencing the law concerning divorce found in Duet. 24.  And though the law had required that the penalty for adultery was to be death, yet the rabbis had used a contingency of Moses to change the law to say that you could divorce your wife for basically anything that you felt she had done wrong.  Literally the rabbis taught that if your wife burned your breakfast that was grounds for divorce.

In Matthew 19 some Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce.  They said, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”  And Jesus quoted from Genesis which says, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

In Mal. Chapter 2 it says clearly that God hates divorce.  And yet they had changed the law to accommodate their carnal desires.  And still they claimed that they were keepers of the law.  In fact they were adulterers and were guilty of the punishment of death according to the law.

Spiritual Pharisees today change the law for the sake of accommodating their desires as well. Under the claim of grace they have thrown the moral laws of God under the bus. Divorce rates are as high in Christian churches as it is in the world. But please understand that God’s standard of sin hasn’t changed.  God’s standard of righteousness hasn’t changed.  And God’s standard of justice hasn’t changed either.  God will judge all unrighteousness.  God will hold everyone accountable for what he has done. 2Cor. 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Listen, the only hope for all of us is to throw ourselves before the throne of God and ask for forgiveness of our sins.  As it says in Isaiah 53, we need to recognize that all we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned everyone to his own way.  And that the only way for us to be made right before God is for  the LORD to cause the iniquity of us all to fall on Christ.  If we are going to be acceptable to God, to enter into the kingdom of God, then  Christ’s righteousness is the only way.  And the only way we can appropriate salvation is to turn from our sin in repentance and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and ask for forgiveness.

I will close with Isaiah 55:6 which says, “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”

Investing in the kingdom, Luke 16: 1-13

I remember as a boy growing up in North Carolina someone once showing me a stack of old money that they had found in their attic.  There was enough money  there to make a person rich.  There was only one problem.  Printed on the notes was the words the Confederate States of America.  It was money that was printed in the South during the Civil War.  A lot of people in the South were paid for goods and services or for serving in the Army of the Confederacy with those bank notes.  But when the  Civil War was over, those bank notes were worthless.  And so when I was growing up in the south you used to see them framed up and hanging on a wall, or stored away in an old chest.  You couldn’t buy anything with them anymore.  It was useless currency. 

I believe that this parable that Jesus taught concerning the unrighteous manager is teaching us that investing in the things of this world is a bad deal.  Because in the next world, in the kingdom of heaven, this  world’s currency is worthless.  This money we work so hard for here on earth, is useless currency in heaven.  It’s not valid in that government.  This world is passing away.  One day all that we see here will be burned up and all that we worked so hard to build will be destroyed.  And only what is done for Christ will last. 

That is why our Lord Jesus in Matthew 6: 19 said, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt, where thieves do not break through and steal, for where your treasure is there will your heart be also."   Here is what Jesus is saying;  you want to know where a person’s heart is?  Then see where their treasure is.  Look at what they treasure.  Look at what’s important to them.  Look at what they invest in.  That is indicative of their heart. 

Now I’m not going to use this parable today to preach about money per se.  It seems that is the focus of most messages and commentaries on this parable.  I don’t necessarily think that was the focus of Jesus Christ.  Money in this case is only a symptom of the condition of the heart.  It’s an outward manifestation of one’s inward nature. 

There is nothing wrong with money in and of itself.  We all like to point out all the rich people in the Bible that were godly men.  Abraham, for instance, was very rich.   But consider what Hebrews has to say about Abraham. Heb. 11:8,  “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;  for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”  And then in vs.13, “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth….they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”

The issue wasn’t how much money Abraham had.  The issue was that Abraham’s focus wasn’t about building an earthly kingdom.  He was concerned about building a heavenly kingdom.  And because he was faithful and obedient to God in the earthly matters of his life, he could look forward to receiving an inheritance in the heavenly kingdom, the city of God.

Now this parable comes in the middle of a long string of parables and teachings that Jesus has been given.  And the way Luke presents them is almost like a layering affect of certain truths concerning the kingdom of heaven.  Someone has said that Jesus spoke about 40 parables that we have record of.  And many of them I’m sure He used more than once to different audiences.  But what is special about the gospel of Luke is that Luke presents an historical narrative, but at the same time positions the events and teachings in such a way as to build one upon another.  So as I say each week, it’s important to remember the context as we consider these parables and remember that they are part of a greater message. 

For instance, if you were here last week, we looked at the end of chapter 15 and the parable of the prodigal son.  And what became apparent out of that study was that both of the sons received their share of the estate.  One son went away and  squandered what had been entrusted to him, and the other son stayed home and used his share for his purposes.  But they both were given a share of the estate.  But Jesus made the point that the celebration belonged to the son who went away because he had eventually come to his senses and returned home to serve the father.  He realized that the father was the source of life and joy and sustenance and as a result the father welcomed him into the home and gave him a great party to celebrate his homecoming.  The point of the story wasn’t about the money the son had squandered, but it was about coming to the point of being willing to renounce the world and leave behind the pleasures of sin and return to the Father.  To come to the point of being willing to serve the father even as a slave.  And for that kind of commitment, the Father was willing to not only accept the son back as a servant, but as a son and restore his inheritance in the estate. So the parable of the prodigal taught that being in the kingdom required something.  It requires repentance. 

If you go back another chapter to ch.14, Jesus tells another parable about counting the cost of becoming His disciple.  And He concludes the analogy by saying in vs.33,  “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”  The principle that Jesus was teaching is that entrance into the kingdom of heaven costs you something.  And what it costs is the world.  Giving up what is considered gain in this world for gaining the kingdom of heaven. 

Just prior to that in 14:16, Jesus had given another parable to teach a similar principle.  He talked about a big feast which was a picture of the kingdom of heaven.  And when the invitation went out, everyone said they fully intended on coming to the feast on the appointed day.  But when the master sent his servant out to bring them in on the appointed day, everyone was busy doing something else.  They were all working or marrying or buying and selling and they did not have time to come to the feast.  The principle was clear, to enter the kingdom of heaven you need to make the kingdom of heaven your priority.  Your career or your family or your wife or your possessions cannot be first and the kingdom of heaven somewhere down on the bottom of the totem pole.  No, Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of heaven must be the first priority.  The kingdom of heaven demands something.  And that which it demands is to be first place in our lives.

Jesus makes that principle really crystal clear in vs. 27, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”  He is talking about dying to your personal agenda, dying to the world’s agenda, dying to working for your personal fortune or fame or glory, and living instead for the glory of God. 

We don’t have time to backtrack over the last several chapters, but the principle is pretty much the same in all the parables.  Jesus just keeps changing the story to give you a different perspective, but the principles never change.  He says in chapter 13:24, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”  He’s talking about entrance into the kingdom of heaven!  Not many will be able to enter.  Why not?  Because their priorities were wrong.  They may have sang the songs, they said they believed in God, they may have said they were Christians, but they never renounced the world.  They thought that Christianity was a means of worldly gain.  Being a Christian to them meant that God would bless your career, God would give you a big house, God would make it possible for you  to be wealthy, healthy and wise. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this folks, but God never promised you heaven on earth.  God promised you the kingdom of heaven, a future eternal home in which you will rule and reign with Christ.  But only as you are willing to suffer with Him here first. 

Rom 8:16, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”  What we suffer is the loss of this world, to gain the glory of the next.  As Jesus said in Matt. 16:25, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Here’s the deal folks.  Let me make this clear.  There are three stages to salvation.  Various elements of the evangelical community like to camp out on one extreme or the other, but you really need to realize that there are three stages to salvation and all of them are necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven.  First is justification.  This is where I come by faith to Christ and confess that I am a sinner, and I repent of my sins and I trust in the promise of God that He will transfer my sins to Jesus and transfer Jesus righteousness unto me.  That’s justification in a nutshell.  But that is not the end of the gospel.  A lot of us want to stop right there.  The next stage is sanctification.  And this stage is where the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in me, to rule over my spirit and soul and body, to conform me to the image of Jesus Christ.  This is where I day by day die to myself by taking up my cross and follow Him, doing as He did, living like He lived, for the will of the Father, to the glory of God.  And the third stage to salvation is glorification.  This is when one day Christ comes back for me as His bride, and either resurrects me if I am dead, or I join Him in the air if I am alive, but in either case I will be changed, in moment, in the twinkling of an eye.  And I shall be like Him for I shall see Him as He is.  And I will live with Him forever in the eternal city of God which He has prepared for those that love Him.  

Unfortunately, most so called Christians today think that they can have stage one and stage three without stage two.  They think it is possible to be justified without being sanctified.  But God doesn’t see it that way.  If you are truly saved, then all three stages must happen and will happen.  They are irrevocably connected. Rom. 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son,[that’s sanctification] that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Hebrews 12:14 says that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord.

So the parable that we are looking at today is teaching some key principles of sanctification.  If you have become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, then these are principles of that kingdom that you need to apply.  This is the sanctification process that characterizes those who are born of the Spirit. 

First though let’s look at the parable.  It’s interesting that Jesus uses a rabbinical style of teaching here. He is teaching from the lesser to the greater.  He is basically saying, if a lessor principle is true, then it must be even more so that a greater principle is true.  And so to make that comparison He uses an illustration of an unrighteous person.  It’s important to note though that Jesus isn’t condoning the unrighteous manager for his wrong business practices.  No one should think from this parable that God winks at sin.  But Jesus is using this example of a worldly way of thinking and producing results as a comparison to what we should be doing in the spiritual realm.  In other words, if you do this in the worldly realm to achieve results, then so should you do this in the spiritual realm to produce results. 

Now this unrighteous manager was squandering his master’s estate.  And you should note right there the parallel between the parable of the prodigal son and this parable.  In the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son squandered his share of his father’s estate.  In this case, the manager has squandered his master’s estate.    Now in this case, the rich master calls him and says he is going to fire him as manager because he has been mismanaging his funds.  And furthermore, he wants the manager to give an accounting of what he has done with the money. 

Now it’s difficult for us to put this into a 21^st century perspective.  We don’t know exactly how this sort of business that Jesus was referring to operated.  But if I can conjecture a moment, I would suggest that the manager was more or less like a debt collector for the rich man.  Perhaps like a banker who  would arrange loans for people and then charge them a percentage as profit.  And the customary arrangement was for the one who collected to add his percentage on top of what was due to the master.  So somehow this manager had been playing fast and loose with the loans.  Maybe he was charging exorbitant rates.  Maybe he was taking all the money and spending it on himself and not paying back the rich man what was owed him.  Jesus doesn’t make it clear. 

But the story progresses with the manager finding himself in a dilemma.  He has to give his boss an accounting.  That means that he has to show how badly he has mismanaged the funds and in those days that meant that he could be required to pay him back or be thrown into prison or both. And he doesn’t have the money to pay it back because he squandered it.  That means he spent it foolishly.   And there is an even greater predicament.  He is also out of a job.  He will be penniless and without a job.  Furthermore, debt collectors were hated people.  They were like loan sharks.  They added outrageous fees on top of your debt so that you could never pay it back.  So when he found himself penniless and without a job he wouldn’t be able to find another one because everyone in the community hated him for taking advantage of their indebtedness to his boss. 

So this manager comes up with a brilliant plan to not only appease his boss but ingratiate himself with the community. He goes to the first debtor and says “How much do you owe my master?” And the guy looks at his bill which has all the interest and fees attached and says, “One hundred measures of oil.”  And the manager says, “Well here is a great deal for you.  Let’s do a cash settlement.  Pay me 50 measures of oil and we will consider it paid.”  He does the same to the next debtor.  That guy hasn’t had the loan as long, so the settlement is only a 20% discount instead of the 50% discount he gave the other guy.  But it’s still a good deal.  And the implication is that the manager does this with all the people that owe money to his rich master. 

So then the day comes when he has to meet his master and give an accounting.  And because of all of his creative financing, he doesn’t look quite as bad.  He has actually done well at collecting the money for his master, and at the same time he has made friends for himself in the community because he took off so much interest on their debt.  And Jesus says in vs. 8 that the master praised the unrighteous steward because he acted shrewdly.  The master got his money back and the manager made friends in the community which would help him out in return when he didn’t have a job anymore.  He was a shrewd person and the master praised him for it.

But the principle Jesus is making is found in the second part of the verse.  “For the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.”  First we need to understand who Jesus is talking about.  Sons of this age simply means sons of the world. And sons of light means those that have been born again into the kingdom of heaven.  So you can say it like this;  unsaved people are more shrewd in relation to earthly things than saved people are shrewd about heavenly things.

In other words, people of this world are great at investing for the future, planning for retirement, networking for the sake of commerce, building a business or using money to influence people.  Men are very shrewd in regards to worldly things.  Jesus doesn’t condone worldliness, but he recognizes it for what it is, and says that men are good at doing it. They are good at using their resources to further their means. But in contrast He says that the same can’t be said for the saved person.  Though we have been born again, a new creation, yet He is saying we aren’t shrewd in relation to the kingdom of heaven.  We fail to plan for eternity.  We fail to invest in the kingdom.  We don’t network for the sake of the kingdom.  We fail to use money or resources to influence people to enter the kingdom.  Now Jesus has already referenced in another parable many reasons why that happens.  We get sidetracked by careers, or families or possessions.  Jesus has made that clear in previous parables.

So Jesus gives three principles which are to be applied for those who are sons of light so that we might be wise stewards or righteous stewards.  Just as the manager was given a stewardship so we too are given a stewardship.  And we need to apply these principles if we are to be found good stewards.  Jesus said back in chapter 12 that to those who have been entrusted with much, much shall be required.  He said in the parable of the rich fool who died after building more and more barns to house more produce here on earth, that there will be a day of accounting. 2Cor. 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

So then principle number one is found in vs. 9. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.” What Jesus is talking about is using earthly things, earthly resources for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  There are a number of ways you can do that.  God has entrusted you with a stewardship of money, time, talents and resources to use at your disposal.  And if you are going to be a faithful, righteous steward of God’s resources, then first of all you recognize that they aren’t given to spend on yourselves, but they are tools to use for the kingdom of God. 

Paul says it like this in 1Timothy 6:17; “As for the rich in this world, [or those that are rich in the things of this world] charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches but on God who richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.”  Whatever God has given you employ in the furtherance of the kingdom, so that when this world fails, those people that you have benefited will welcome you into heaven.  That’s how you invest in the kingdom of heaven. That’s how you employ earthly resources for heavenly gains.  You have resources that God has entrusted you with to build up the kingdom of God.  And when you do that, you will be laying up treasures for yourself in heaven by virtue of the souls that are in heaven whom you have helped.

The second principle is found in vs. 10-13; “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.  Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?”  You know, I really think that this is one of the most important principles in the life of a Christian.  To be found faithful in the little things.  Oh, we all want to receive the big important jobs in the kingdom.  We all desire the greater gifts.  And so we should.  But before we get the greater gifts, the greater responsibility, God often tests us with the little things to see if we will be found faithful. 

So many people I’ve met want to be a teacher and yet can’t be faithful in the little things like prayer, attendance, personal devotions, or helping with the little things of ministry.  The humble things of ministry go before the exalted things of ministry. 1Pet. 5:6, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.”  And Paul said in 1Cor. 4:2, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”  When you look at all the great saints of God like Daniel and Abraham and Moses, the common characteristic of all of them was that they were found faithful in the little things.  Be faithful in the little things; be faithful with your money, be faithful to support your church, be faithful to attend church, be faithful to pray, be faithful in your devotions.  It takes a certain amount of discipline and committment to be faithful to the kingdom, but above all else, be faithful.

Finally, the last principle is in vs. 13; “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  The point is simple.  You are either going to be employed in serving the interests of the world or serving the kingdom of God.  They are not compatible.  In fact, they are at odds with one another.  This passage if nothing else shows that the prosperity doctrine that is taught so often today is a lie from hell.  The devil knows that if he can occupy your interest in the things of the world then he can enslave you by the things of the world.  And you will not have time for the things of God.  You cannot serve God and the world.  You cannot serve the Almighty God and the almighty dollar.  One excludes the other. 

When Joshua was about to lead the children of Israel into the promised land he called them together and said in Joshua 24:14, “Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  Five times Joshua says serve the Lord.  Serve the Lord.

Listen, that is the same choice before you today.  You can either serve the god of this world, the things of this world, the money of this world, or you can serve the Lord.  The choice is yours, but you can’t serve both this world and the kingdom of God.  But like Bob Dylan sang, “it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”  I trust you will commit to serve the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.  That you marshal all your resources that God has entrusted to you and employ them faithfully in the furtherance of the kingdom of God.  One day soon He is coming back and He will demand an accounting.  I pray that you will be found faithful. Jesus said in Mark 8:36

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

I pray you might lay up treasures in heaven and not on earth so that when one day you stand before God to give an accounting of your time and resources here on earth, that He might say, “well done, My good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.” 

The prodigal son, Luke 15: 11-32

Today’s passage is a parable commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son, which is part of a trilogy of parables that Jesus gave in this chapter.  They were given by Jesus in response to the attitude of the Pharisees who grumbled when sinners and tax collectors came to hear Him preach.  And particularly they thought it was inappropriate for Jesus to receive them and even eat with them.  So in response, Jesus tells them three parables, a trilogy; first a parable of the lost sheep, secondly the parable of the lost coin, and thirdly the parable of the lost son in order to illustrate that the ministry of God is to reclaim the lost. 

Now a parable is a story told for illustration purposes.  It’s a fictitious story, the characters and the story line are made up for the purpose of illustrating a heavenly principle by means of an earthly story.  And in a nutshell, this trilogy is illustrating the nature of the lost, the need for repentance, the compassion of the Father and the joy of heaven at the lost being saved. 

And so we will use those principles as an outline to look at this parable today. So first of all let’s consider the nature of the lost.  In the parable of the sheep, the one sheep wandered away from the flock and became lost.  In the second parable the coin was lost at home.  And in this third parable, the son is lost by deliberately leaving  the father’s house.

Now there are a few points that we can make that will help us understand the nature of the lost son.  First of all, it would have been evident to the hearers of this parable in that day that this was a particularly insolent and rebellious son.  Basically this younger son couldn’t wait for his father to die so that he could receive his inheritance.  He believes that he has gotten old enough to go his own way and make his own choices.  He thinks he is smarter than the old man.  And so rather than wait until his father dies and then receiving his share of the estate as was customary, this young man goes and brashly asks his father to give it to him now. 

And interestingly, Jesus doesn’t detail any of the father’s deliberations or misgivings about this request, but He says the father accommodates his son’s defiance by splitting the estate between the two sons.   And after a few days, it says that the son gathered everything together.   We might understand that to mean that he liquidated his share of the estate and got all the money together and then he set off for a foreign land.  And while he was there he squandered it all in loose living.  That is where the word prodigal comes from by the way.  Jesus never used that word, but it means extravagant, wasteful.  And it describes the way this young man acted when he received the inheritance. 

Now the application is clear.  The lost son is a picture of the sinner who has taken the life that God has given him, the health, the wealth, the wisdom and the resources of life, and decided that he can make his own choices as to how to use them best.  He thinks he is a better judge of right and wrong than God is.  He wants to control his life.  He doesn’t want to live under the rules of the kingdom of God.  He feels that it’s too controlling, too confining.  And so we too take what we think is ours, what is ours by right, and we use it for our own purposes.  We want to be the captain of our own destiny.  We forget that it was God who provided us with those resources. 

And so to get away from this oppressive God who just wants to ruin our fun, we go as far away from God as possible.  We avoid thinking of Him at all costs.  We avoid church.  We actually come to hate all that He represents.  We want nothing to do with God. 

And you can be sure that the devil is right there beside us every inch of the way, luring us on.  Tempting us to think that just over the next horizon there will be the freedom, the satisfaction, the happiness that we are looking for.  And so like the prodigal son we spend our lives in wastefulness, thinking one more drink will satisfy me.  Maybe this pill or that drug will provide the peace that I am looking for.  Or if I just get that high paying job I’ll be happy.  If I just get that girlfriend or wife I’ll be happy.  If I just let myself go sexually I’ll be satisfied.  Whatever it is, it is a lifestyle of wastefulness, extravagance; a desire for more, and more and more.  And yet rather than satisfying, it leaves you empty. 

In the case of the prodigal, and in the case of perhaps some of you, you eventually reach bottom.  You squander your God given life on loose living.  Like the lost son, one day you eventually reach the bottom.  Your health is gone.  Your friends are gone.  Your money is gone.  And like the prodigal son who at the bottom had to hire himself out to feed pigs you find that the freedom you thought you were getting is actually slavery to sin.  Maybe you’re addicted to alcohol or drugs.  Maybe you’re caught up in a lifestyle that has become nothing but a rat race that is enslaving you. 

This was the story of my life.  I grew up in a Christian home.  My father was a preacher.  And I grew up feeling that Christianity was oppressive.  It was restrictive.  I felt like all the other kids had freedom that I didn’t have.  I felt like I was viewing the world from outside of a window, and I desperately wanted to experience what it was like to be on the other side.  So like the prodigal, there came a day when I gathered everything up and left for California.  It didn’t take long until I found myself in a similar situation as the prodigal.  I remember realizing one day that I hadn’t gone to bed sober in over three years.  In my case, I wrestled with the thought of coming back to God for a couple of weeks or so. Eventually one night I reached the end of myself.  I reached a point where I was sick of being where I was and wanted to get things right with God.  And so after walking the beach all day, I went back home and my roommate was home playing the stereo really loud with some of his friends.  So I went downstairs to the garage and shut the door and began to call out in repentance to God.  And thankfully, God answered me.  God was ready and willing to forgive me and bring me back into the fold.  He restored the life that I had lost.

Now that is the picture that Jesus paints in this story.  In the case of the prodigal, to add injury to insult as he spends all his money on loose living a severe famine comes upon the land.  Things go from bad to worse.  And so this young man finds himself at this lowest place in his life.  For those Pharisees that were listening, they couldn’t have imagined a worse place for a Jew to end up than working in a pig pen.  But sometimes God sends a famine and allows us to end up in a pig pen to get us to realize how stinky our sin is.  One day this young man is so hungry he is thinking of eating the carob pods that they used to feed the pigs.  And then he thinks of how back home even the lowest of the hired hands ate pretty good at his father’s house. 

Jesus said that the dire circumstances caused the young man to come to his senses.  Literally, it says he came to himself.  He came to a place where he had to examine himself and he saw himself for who he was.  There was an old country preacher that was once preaching on this parable. He was illustrating what happened to the prodigal son in the far country. He said, "As his money disappeared he had to sell his clothes in order to eat. He took off his shoes and sold those. Then he took off his coat and sold that. Then he took off his shirt and sold that. And then he came to himself!"  That’s what we all need to come to, when we finally bare our soul and examine ourselves.  This man came to that point and he came up with a plan.   Vs. 18, He said, “I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”

Now that brings us to the second point, the nature of repentance.  This young man felt sorry for himself and the predicament that he found himself in.  But repentance is much more than simply being sorry.  Lots of people find themselves in unfortunate circumstances, maybe something of a crisis, and they call out to God for help.  They may sincerely want help.  They sincerely want God to answer them and get them out of the crisis.  They may become very emotional.  And even years later when recounting that situation they may become emotional in talking about it.  But when the crisis was over, they went back to the same things that they did before because they never really repented.  That is not repentance as described by Jesus here.

Notice how Jesus describes repentance.  And remember, this has been the theme of all the parables until now.  In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus concludes in vs. 7, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  And in the parable of the lost coin, He says in vs. 10, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  What Jesus is making clear is that repentance is the only way back to the Father. 

So let’s look at the characteristics of repentance.  First of all, he came to his senses.  He got so far down the only way he could look was up, and he realized how far he had fallen.  True repentance requires that you realize your absolute hopelessness.  Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  We need to come to the point of realizing that between us and God’s standard of righteousness there is a great gulf fixed which we cannot possibly jump over.  We need to recognize the hopelessness of our situation.  Secondly, we need to confess our sins and our hopelessness.  We need to confess we are lost in order to be saved. 1John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” 

Thirdly, we need to be willing to turn away from our sin.  We need to be sick of our sin.  We need to realize how terrible it is.  Not just be sorry for the consequences of our sin, but be sick of the condition of our sinfulness and wanting to be freed from not only the guilt, but the power of sin over us.  That’s what Jesus was talking about in the sermon on the mount when He said “blessed are they that mourn.”  He was talking about the necessity of a sinner mourning over their sin as a characteristic of entering into the kingdom of God.  The prodigal son was willing to get up out of the pig pen and go back to his father’s house and beg for mercy.  He didn’t call his father up and ask him to send him some money so that he could continue living the life that he wanted to live. But he was willing to give up that life.  That is the characteristic of repentance.  It’s not seeking forgiveness but being unwilling to forsake sinfulness.  But it’s going the opposite direction.  Once he had chased after sin, now he is leaving that country and going back to his father’s house.  He turned around and went the other direction.  A lot of people today want forgiveness, they want grace, they want out of their crisis, but they want to hold onto their sin.  They aren’t willing to forsake the world or the things of the world.  This guy was willing to forsake everything.  That’s what repentance requires. 

Fourthly, repentance requires renouncing your rights.  Notice he says I am going to say to my father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”   This is so important.  When we repent we give up our right to our freedom.  We give up the right to make our own decisions as to what is right or wrong.  We give up the right to determine the course of our lives.  This man said I am not worthy to be called your son.  Repentance doesn’t come demanding.  It doesn’t come asking for favors.  It doesn’t come demanding what we think God owes us.  Listen, God owes us nothing.  If He gave us what we deserved it would be death.  This man had the right attitude.  He realized that he didn’t deserve to come back home as a son.  He didn’t even have the right to come back as a servant that would live under the care of the father.  He said he would just ask if he could come back as the lowest of hired men.  Not even living on the property.  This man humbled himself in true repentance.  And that repentance brought about reconciliation with the father.

That brings us to the next point; the compassion of the Father. This is my favorite part of the story.  Vs. 20 says, “So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”  First of all, it’s obvious from the story that this father had been looking for the young man to return for a long while.  He says later that he had been considered dead.  The young man had been gone so long that people thought he must have died.  But I can picture the father walking out of the estate down a long drive to the end of the  road and standing there looking  off in the distance and longing for his son.  He must have imagined on a daily basis what his son was doing that day.  He must have worried if he was ok.  I can imagine that the father prayed for him everyday and hoped that one day he would return.  His love for the boy never failed.  He never gave up on him.

What a picture of our heavenly Father.  He created us in love.  He created us to be the objects of His love.  But we sinned, we acted rebelliously, we thought we could decide between good and evil and we rebelled against His word.  And consequently we had to leave the Garden of Eden, we were shut off from the source of life and we squandered our lives in living for ourselves.  But God never stopped loving us.  He never stopped looking for us.  He never stopped seeking us.  The Bible says that God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, to pay the penalty for our sins upon the cross that we might be reconciled to God. 

So back to the parable, one day the father goes to the end of the road as usual, and peers at the horizon, longing for his son.  And suddenly he sees a distant figure on the horizon.  His heart must skip a beat as he watches ever more intently as it draws closer.  And then somehow even though the man is still a long ways off, he recognizes that it must be his son.  And it says the father ran to him while he was still a long ways off.  Now that doesn’t fully describe what happened.  In those days, men wore long robes that came down to their ankles.  And so this father would have done something that the Pharisees would have thought was absolutely unseemly.  Completely undignified.  Elder men in those days simply didn’t run.  But he would have reached down and gathered up his robe around his knees and started running down the road.  It must have been a ludicrous sight to see the old father, his hair and beard streaming out behind him, his robe pulled up over his lanky legs and knobby knees exposed, running down the road with tears streaming down his cheeks.  And then coming upon the young man, who undoubtedly still  smelled like a pig, must have looked terrible, wasted away, unshaven, dirty, disheveled. And yet the father could care less.   Before his son could say a word, he had thrown his arms around him and kissed him repeatedly.  Now that is compassion.  That is the love of the father.  That is the love of God towards repenting sinners.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  God loves us while we were yet sinners.  God doesn’t reserve his compassion until we fulfilled some sort of probation.  He doesn’t require us to do some sort of penance.  Jesus did the penance for us.  He paid the penalty that we could never pay so that we might be made righteous before God. 

What this parable shows us is that God was willing to humiliate Himself in order to save us.  That shows the extent of His love. Phil. 2:5 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

The prodigal son hadn’t even had time to say the speech that he had prepared before his father had already welcomed him home and showered him with love.  But finally the young man blurts out his speech: vs. 21, “And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;  for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.

 Listen, God cares less about our prayer or our words than he does our heart.  He knew the heart of the young man when he returned was a heart of repentance.  And so the joy of the father calls for reconciliation and celebration.  By the way, I would have liked to save this message for a few more weeks until Father’s Day.  But it didn’t work out that way.  However, I hope that you dad’s out there consider as I do this parable as a template for how a godly father should treat a wayward child.  I think that sometimes we buy into a lot of the tough love philosophy that is out there.  And there may be a time when some of that is necessary.  But you don’t see that pictured here in this story.  If there is tough love here, it is self directed – directed by the father upon himself, not upon the boy.  And I think we should really consider this story when we deal with these situations as fathers.  We have no greater example of fatherhood than that of our heavenly Father. 

Well back to our story.  We’ve seen the nature of the lost, the need for repentance, the compassion of the Father and now let’s look quickly at the joy of heaven at the lost being saved.   First we see the son’s reconciliation.  He doesn’t have to come back as a hired hand as he was willing to do.  The father reinstates him as a son.  That is the picture Jesus gives here of putting a robe on him and a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. First the robe is given.  That is a picture of the robe of righteousness which we have received by faith in  Christ.  I think Jesus had in mind the passage in Isaiah 61:10 which says, “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.”

And not only is the younger son reinstated as a son, but once again he is an heir of the father.  That is the significance of the ring, I believe.  It would be signet ring with the family crest that was a symbol of authority. Romans 8:16 says that we have not only been made children of God when we didn’t deserve it, but we are also made  heirs of God.   It says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

In the preceding parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, they both refer to the joy of heaven at the sinner who repents.  In this parable that is fleshed out a little bit more.  They kill the fattened calf.  That would have been saved for a great occasion such as a wedding feast.  It says later that the older son heard music and dancing.  So the picture is given of a full blown celebration.  I think there is an immediate response of celebration in heaven when a sinner repents, but I also think that this is picturing the celebration of the glorification of man when he is taken up to meet the Lord in the air.  This is a picture of when the kingdom of God is consummated at the end of the age, when all the redeemed sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  It is an illustration of the prophecy that Jesus made in Luke 12, when He said, “Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.”   This is speaking of the day when the bridegroom who is Christ will serve the bride who is the church at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  It will be a celebration that will never really end, when God will reveal all the wonderful things that He has prepared for those that love Him. 

Well, I would like to just end right there on a high note, but Jesus doesn’t end it there.  Jesus adds a final element to the story.  And He does so to bring the application to the Pharisees who were listening to Him.  These men scorned the sinners and tax collectors who were coming in repentance to Jesus.  They didn’t think that they deserved any mercy from God.  They thought that they themselves however, were deserving of God’s favor.  After all, they kept the law, or so they claimed.  They were certainly moral people.  They believed in God.  They were fastidious in the outward signs that were perceived to be religious.  For instance, they tithed down to the mint and dill from their herb gardens. They publicly fasted regularly.  They attended all church services and functions.  They were really great at giving long prayers in public.  And they knew a lot of Bible verses.  They thought they were children of God.  They thought God owed them blessings in their lives.  They fully expected God to reward their diligence in serving Him. 

And so Jesus adds the last part of the parable just for them.  He says as the party was going on in the house, the older son came home from the fields.  And he heard the music and the sound of the dancing and he asked a servant what was going on.  The servant told him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.”  Now that should have been a cause for him to join the celebration.  He should have been thrilled that his brother came home safe.  But instead it revealed the bitterness of his heart.  He was angry that his brother had been restored.  He was angry that the father would restore his brother as a son again and hold a party in his honor.

And who he is angry at is not necessarily the brother, but the father.  He feels he has worked as a slave for his father and yet the father is willing to celebrate for the sinner.  He feels he has earned something and his brother is being given something he doesn’t deserve.  He feels he has been faithful and his brother has been unfaithful.  But what is apparent is that his heart is not right.  He doesn’t have a right relationship with his father.  If you look back at the beginning of the parable, the father divided the estate between both sons.  The oldest son had taken his share as well.  The youngest son took his share and left home and was lost.  The oldest son took his share and stayed home and lost out.  The point is that as I said earlier, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  The Pharisees needed a Savior as much as the sinners needed a Savior.  But the point Jesus is making is that without repentance there is no salvation.  And the oldest son’s attitude towards his brother and his father indicate a lack of humility, a lack of repentance, and a hostility towards those that are saved by grace. 

Listen, this is the significance of the oldest son.  He represents the people who refuse to repent.  They think that they are good enough because of their morality.  They compare themselves with others and think that they are better and so therefore God owes them something.  The law abiding older brother complained that he had never been given a party like his younger brother the reprobate.  Yet in his heart he had never confessed his sin, he had never repented of his sin, and yet he had taken of the father’s estate and used it for himself as well.  Jesus said the Pharisees did what good they did to be seen of men, for men’s approval and for earthly rewards.  That was their motivation.  And because their hearts had never been humbled in repentance, they were outside of the celebration.  They would not come into the feast.  God loved them too.  That is clear in the parable.  The father loved both his sons.  He implored the older son to come inside.  But he would not come.  He was indignant that the only way into the kingdom was through repentance.  

But that is the requirement of the kingdom of God. God is willing to go after us, to look for us, to seek us, to pick us up and carry us on His shoulders into the kingdom of God.  But we must first realize that we are lost. The Pharisees refused to believe that they were lost. They refused to identify with sinners.  They wanted to make a claim against God based on their righteousness. Titus 3:4 says, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Listen, today all of us here are represented by one of these two sons.  Perhaps you are represented by the prodigal son.  You have lived a life of wanton pleasure, wasting your life after things that in the end have not brought you the happiness and peace that you wanted.  I hope that today you will come to your senses and call out to the Father in humility and repentance.  Jesus said whoever comes to Me I will in no way cast out, but I will welcome him and come into him.

Or maybe you find yourself represented by the older son.  You stayed home.  You have tried to live a respectable life in the community.  You tried to be morally good.  You go to church.  You participate in religious ceremonies.  But if you honestly evaluate your life, you recognize that you don’t have a right relationship with God.  You have never confessed that you are a sinner.  You have never accepted that your righteousness is not enough.  And if you’re honest you must admit that your motives for serving God are self serving.  Listen, Jesus is making it clear that there is only one way to be reconciled to God and that is through repentance.  Being willing to forsake your pride, your dignity, your respectability, your plans, your self esteem and confess that you are a sinner and ask for God’s forgiveness.  The Father is willing to save.  He wants to bring you into the kingdom of God and give you all that He has for you.  Don’t hang on to your pride.  But humble yourselves in the sight of God and then He will exalt you.   Let’s pray.