[This message is not the
typical Bible exposition to which I am committed, but rather a “retelling” of
the story of the prodigal son through some contemporary illustrations. It is
hoped that the reader/listener will be drawn into the stories and understand better
the amazing grace that God has extended toward us in Jesus. S.N.]
“Friend Day: Amazing Grace!”
Luke
15:11-32
Introduction:
The Olympics put Brazil, and the city of Rio de Janeiro, on our American
televisions a lot this summer. Most of you know that Mary Ann and I spent most
of our missionary career in the city of Sao Paulo, the largest city in South
America. Before we look at the story of the “Lost Son” which Jesus told, let me
tell you a true story that was reported by the popular writer and pastor Max Lucado,
who himself was formerly a missionary in Brazil. The setting is Rio, and the
story is about a young girl named Christina, and her mother Maria…
Longing to leave her poor
Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontented with a
home having only a pallet on the floor, a wash-basin, and a wood-burning stove,
she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away,
breaking her mother's heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like
for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On
her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing.
Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all
she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white
photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.
Maria
knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter
was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that
were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels,
nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes.
She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture -- taped on a
bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone
booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn't too long
before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The
weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small
village.
It
was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her
young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of
pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A
thousand times over she had longed to trade those countless beds for her secure
pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away. As she
reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked
again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother.
Christina's eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room
and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation:
"Whatever you have done,
whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come home."
She did.
"Whatever
you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come
home." The unconditional love of a
parent. It wasn’t earned, it wasn’t
deserved, it was freely given. That is really the story of the prodigal son
which Jesus told. His point is that we
all deserve judgment, even so, God who is rich in mercy, offers to us
forgiveness in Christ. Look around,
how many perfect people do you see in church today? I’ll give you the
answer, right from the Bible: “There is
none righteous, not even one.” Because that is true, our only hope is God’s
grace… “G.R.A.C.E.”—God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
*C.S. Lewis came into a group that was
discussing what was unique about Christianity: “That’s easy – it’s grace!” The story of the Prodigal Son is a beautiful
illustration of God’s amazing grace…
I.
The son was lost. Christina was lost. Before we judge them, realize that we all
need Grace (11-16)! The story that Jesus told really was about two sons, and the joy
the Father felt when the lost son returned home. The context is given in 15:1,2…
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near
to hear him. 2 And the
Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and
eats with them." 3 So he
told them this parable…
The religious leaders were not happy with the
fact that Jesus was associating with “sinners.” So Jesus told them a series of
three stories about the joy that is experienced when something that had been
lost, is found. A lost sheep, a lost coin, and then finally, the lost son. We’re focusing on the third story, better
known as “the Prodigal Son.” The
Pharisees were “religious,” and Jesus is saying “religion” is not the way to
God. This is popular thinking: do enough good, do it well enough, and I’m in! In
fact, most religions of the World are in some way based on good works. In my personal experience I grew up only
occasionally going to church and managed to miss the central message of the Bible:
I thought if I was good enough, if there was a God, and if there was a “heaven”
I would be “in,” or at least I hoped so! The truth is I was never good
enough! But neither is anyone else, “For
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Pharisees were
very religious people, they did about as good a job of living by the rules as
anyone could do, yet Jesus had more conflict with them than He did with anyone!
Indeed, he said, “Unless your
righteousness surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter
the Kingdom of Heaven!” The problem was they did not think they
needed grace. They didn’t see that they too were lost.
The younger son in Jesus’ story thought he
knew where he would find happiness. We’re all looking for life with meaning, and
we want to enjoy life. Too often we look
in the wrong places. Look at what the younger son did…
11 And he said, "There was a man who had two
sons. 12 And the younger of
them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of property that is coming
to me.' And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the
younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and
there he squandered his property in reckless living.
Two steps, first he
makes a request of his father: “Let me have my inheritance now, why should I
have to wait until you’re dead?” Then, he gathered it all together and left,
and squandered every penny on wild living.
In Lucado’s story Christina went to Rio looking for excitement and fun.
She thought she would find happiness in the “big city” – but the emptiness
inside only grew more intense. In the
same way, the Prodigal son thought money and the party life would bring
happiness – it took hitting the bottom for his eyes to be opened. The Prodigals in both stories thought they
knew best, they didn’t need a parent telling them what to do. Before we
judge them, think about this: if we are trying to live our life without God,
without our heavenly father, we have said pretty much the same thing. We should
recognize that we all need Grace, none of us is righteous, no, not one.
We all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Rom 3:10, 23)… The good news
is that we have a Father who is waiting to receive us if only we’ll come.
II. We must come to recognize that we all need
Grace (17-20a). The first step home is
seeing our need.
Christina knew she
blew it, she just needed to know that she could come home, that her mother was
waiting. The prodigal son came to realize that he had gone in the wrong direction
(15:17-19). He was starving, wishing he could eat the garbage that was being
fed to the pigs, and he “came to his senses.” He had no right to “expect” anything
from his father – he thought, “Let me be one of his servants, at least they eat!”
Wherever we are, God is waiting for us
to repent, to turn toward home. One writer reported seeing on the side of a plumber's
van in South Africa: “There is no place too deep, too dark or too dirty
for us to handle.” What a wonderful explanation of the Gospel! The human heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked. What we think are righteous deeds are nothing but filthy rags. But God
can cleanse our hearts. We are clean when we put our trust in Jesus.
There is someone else
in Jesus’ parable. He was talking to the
Pharisees, to religious leaders. Who in the parable did Jesus identify with them?
The elder son. Just as the older son did not appreciate the father’s
joy over his brother’s return, the religious leaders didn’t like the fact that
Jesus was rubbing shoulders with “sinners.” They were annoyed that he would
associate with such “riffraff”!
The Pharisees were the religious elite.
Outwardly they were remarkably “pious.” But they weren’t perfect. In
fact, Jesus knew their hearts, and said that
many of them were like “…white-washed
tombs, full of dead men’s bones…” They looked fine on the outside, but inside
they were filled with the stench of death.
It is an election year, and I hesitate
to use a NY politician as a positive illustration, but I’ll go back a few years,
to the time of the Great Depression…
A story is told about Fiorello
LaGuardia, who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the
Great Depression and all of WWII, … He was a colorful character who used to
ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police
department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York
newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies
to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at
a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the
judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.
Within
a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with
stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter's husband had
deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving.
But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the
charges. "It's a real bad neighborhood, your Honor." the man told the
mayor. "She's got to be punished to teach other people around here a
lesson." LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said "I've got
to punish you. The law makes no exceptions--ten dollars or ten days in
jail." But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching
into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero
saying: "Here is the ten-dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I
am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town
where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr.
Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant." So the
following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over
to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving
grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced
grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic
violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents
for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
The
mayor had compassion on the old woman, and rather than dispensing justice, he
showed grace. The Bible tells us that Jesus looked on the multitudes and He was
moved with compassion. He saw our need. He willingly went to the cross
to make it possible for sinners like us to be reconciled to a holy God. We
should recognize that we all need Grace.
The good news is that we have a Father who is waiting to extend it to
us!
III. The Gospel really is Good News(20b-31)! N.B. two “groups”
would have “heard” a very different message… For one it
was judgment, for the other, grace.
The Father is eagerly waiting, really!
You have to admire the steadfast
love of Maria, going through the bars, night spots, hourly hotels of Rio,
posting notes and pictures, urging Christina to come home. She loved her
daughter and pursued her, making every effort to bring her back home. God is like that; He pursues us. He is not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. After
all, He “…so loved the world that He gave
His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life…” (John 3:16).
Did you notice that the
father in the parable Jesus told didn’t reluctantly accept back the younger son?
No, when he saw him in the distance he ran to him and embraced him in tears, he
put a robe on his back and a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet. He
killed the fatted calf and threw a welcome home party! That is the kind of joy
the Father has when a sinner “comes home.” He whispers to us, “Whatever you have done, it
doesn’t matter, please, come home!”
I John 3:1 said “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should
be called the children of God, and such we are!” In Romans 8:32 we read, “He who did not spare his own Son but
delivered Him up for us all…” That
is truly amazing grace! We should
recognize that we all need Grace. The
good news is that we have a Father who is waiting to extend it to us…
Notice,
there were at least 2 groups of hearers, Luke 15:1,2…
Remember the context of the parable, all
the way back in Luke 15:1,2… there we saw the attitude of the religious leaders
to Jesus’ reception of sinners. The
Pharisees were indignant that Jesus would rub elbows with the likes of these,
with such unspiritual outlaws! So
Jesus, knowing their hearts, told them three stories, about a lost sheep, a
lost coin, and a lost son. In each case,
when that which was lost was found, there was rejoicing! He was rebuking the Pharisees with these
stories for their judgmental attitude. Obviously they were in the position of
the elder son in the parable who was angry at the father’s acceptance of the
Prodigal. How could he associate with them?
There was another
group who heard these stories; the sinners who had been drawing near Jesus! For
them, Jesus’ words were grace, forgiveness, mercy. We all need forgiveness. Since that Fall, we
have all been the same. Wanting to do it
our way; testing the boundaries at every opportunity. Yet they Father is waiting, wooing us to come
home. Where do you struggle? Paul wrote
to the Corinthians, a church he planted, a church he knew well, a church that
struggled with spiritual pride. He asked
in 4:10, “What do you have that you did
not receive? If you received it, why do
you boast as if you had not?” There was rejoicing over finding what had
been lost! We should recognize that we all need Grace. The good news is that we have a Father who is
waiting to extend it to us…
What is God
saying to me in this passage? Commonly in the city of São Paulo, when you
stop your car at a traffic light, the street children will appear at your
window. Sometimes selling something,
sometimes performing a little show, twirling a baton or stick, sometimes just
with an outstretched hand, begging. When
you live immersed in such a reality, it’s hard to know what to do. You can’t help them all. Some are sent out there by family members,
and bring the money home for drugs or alcohol.
Some are just hungry, hopeless, and desperate. But there are thousands of them. Back then I would carry some candy in the car
and give it to them, like giving a glass of water in the name of Jesus. Sometimes, when I was busy, I didn’t even see
them. If I opened my window and gave
some-thing I felt a little better, at least I had acknowledged them. A few years ago I read the book by Brennan
Manning, the “Ragamuffin Gospel,” and my perspective changed. I realized I was that little child. Dressed in rags, dirty, smelly, nothing to
offer and no right to expect anything, I held out my hand. And Jesus didn’t just crack the window open
and give me a piece of candy. He threw
the door open wide and embraced me. He washed my dirty face and gave me new
clothes. He not only fed me at his
table, he called me his son. That is
GRACE. The Father is waiting. Whatever
you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home. That is the “Good News” God has extended to
us.
What would He have me to do
in response to this passage? It is not by chance that you are
reading this. The sovereign King of the universe has planned this exact moment
in your life. He brought you here, maybe he sent someone to bring you here, so
that he could tell you, again, that He loves you, that He has been waiting for
you to open the door and let Him into your heart and your life. Do you hear
Him? Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me…”
Do you believe Him? You can receive Him right now, right where you are sitting.
It is as simple as A-B-C,
A-Admit you are a sinner. You already
know that is true because, as the Bible says, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… There is none
righteous, no not one.” Admit your need, and then…
B-Believe that Jesus is the Son of God,
and that He died for your sins on the cross, and that he was buried, and rose
again the third day. Finally…
C-Call on His name, confess Him now as the
Savior and Lord of your life. The Bible promises, “…whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Do you feel unworthy? Good. Turn
from sin, trust Him, and come home. AMEN.
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