Pigheaded Pigpen Living

Luke 15:18

18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

For years I have mentored people in the faith. I have always taken joy in teaching others, even long before I was saved, so mentoring kind of came naturally to me.

But not everyone is teachable.

Take pigs for instance.

• Headstrong

• Always sticking their big noses where THEY DON’T BELONG

• Never improve, they just keep snorting around the pig pen

• Bent on finding that next snack and feeding themselves

I have mentored a few people that remind me of those pigs.

• I would try to gently guide them into their callings

• Guide them away from things that negatively affect what God wanted them to do

• I would give them words from the Lord to encourage them and some WARNING WORDS, TOO, when the Lord was trying to help them avoid the pitfalls

• And then they would go off and do whatever they wanted to do

• However they wanted to do it

• It is like trying to potty train a toddler who is very stubborn.

• You teach them where to potty

• How to potty

• Why to potty

• And they still potty wherever they want to

• Like cutting their proverbial nose off to spite their face

I never could figure out why they wanted me to mentor them just to ignore everything I told them. I ALWAYS STOP MENTORING PEOPLE WHO ACT LIKE THAT.

I always loved the story of the Prodigal son. LUKE 15:11-12

• Because I was a little bit prodigal myself

• Determined to go do my own thing

• Even though it was to my harm to refuse to listen to wisdom from those trying to guide me into a happier life

• I wanted to do what I wanted to do

• I thought MY WAY was better

• I thought I knew everything

• It got my nowhere

The Prodigal Son wanted to go do HIS OWN THING, too.

• He didn’t want to wait for his father’s legacy, he wanted to take his inheritance and go party on it. He wanted immediate gratification. Immediate gratification doesn’t teach us self-restraint. It doesn’t teach us right living. Immediate gratification leads to sloppy living and a life of excess and indulgence.

• Maybe it was the controlling father

• Maybe it was working on the farm every day

• Maybe it was the pouty older brother. BUT HE LEFT HOME TO GO DO HIS OWN THING, his own way.

His father, loving his son, must have been so saddened that his son did not care enough to stay and help with the family business.

• To stay and be sure his father was taken care of in his old age.

• That, in spite of his good raising, his son cared only for the frivolous things in life.

• He had tried to raise him to have a longer viewpoint than that.

• He had provided a legacy for him, that he might have security long after his father was gone.

• That son was basically saying I WANT WHAT YOU CAN GIVE ME, BUT I DON’T WANT YOU

• Any parent knows that if you give a child too much, too soon, they will do the wrong thing with it.

• Because they are not sufficiently mature to know what to do with important things.

• That’s the whole reason we NEEDED parents to guide us.

But the PRODIGAL SON didn’t feel he needed any guidance. He knew his own way would work JUST FINE. LUKE 15:13

LUKE 15:14-17

• You know, there’s a protection when you stay near the Father. When you stay near home base.

• At home base, near the Father, someone cares if you are hungry.

• Someone cares if you have shelter, or if you become ill

• But when you’re just another rebellious son in a far country where no one knows you, you can end up in the pig pen. BECAUSE NO ONE CARES.

• You have left your Father’s house where you were loved and cared for.

• And every one of us has at some time been in rebellion to our loving Father, haven’t we.

• Rebellion, like any other sin, will always take us some place WE DON’T WANT TO BE

• It will always get us into a mess WE DIDN’T PLAN FOR OR EXPECT

But then the Prodigal remembered his father’s words, and he repented.

• He longed again for the comfort and security of the home fires.

• Of being cared for, of a LOVING FATHER

• LUKE 15:18-20a

• You will notice that when he repented, he did not just go “Wow, I wish I hadn’t done that, and THEN STAY THERE.