Four Gospel Pictures From The Parables Of Jesus

"Kenneth Clark, internationally know for his television series Civilization, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. "My whole being," Clark wrote, "was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had known before." But the "gloom of grace," as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change, his family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy would prove to be an illusion. So he concluded, "I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course."

-Our Daily Bread, February 15, 1994.

Many of us here at dinner church I'm sure have felt the power of God's Spirit in this room, in this wonderful dining room at The Salvation Army Owosso. We've felt God's presence! We've been swept up into a powerful experience of His love.

But did we allow that consuming power of God's love reshape our lives? Did we make a decision to give our whole lives to Jesus Christ the savior of all? That is the question I want you to ask yourself today.

Often we know God is real. We've experienced Him here. But we don't want our friends and family to think we're crazy. We don't want to have to change our lives. We don't want to have to become a new person. But I want to tell you day just how much it's worth it to make that decision, and commit to a whole new way of life.

So today I want to look at four parables that Jesus taught, that give pictures of what it means to make a decision for Jesus and follow Him.

First, the parable of The Two Sons - Matthew 21:28-32

“There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered."

Our Lord is like a father who calls his sons to work on his property. Anyone here ever worked on a farm? It's kinda like that. God is our father and says go work on my farm. And as followers of Jesus, either we go and do the work of leading people to Jesus, or we don't. And it's interesting, it doesn't matter what we say. We can say "oh sure i'll go do that Father!" But then we don't. And we can say at one time "no i wont go." But then later we change our mind and we do it. And it's so important that we do it. We go live it. If we don't, then God won't accept us, plain and simple. And even if we reject God at some point, we can always come again later and agree to go work in his field. And he accepts us.

The second parable, the classic Prodigal Son parable - Luke 15:11-32

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’