RELIGIOUSLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
2 RELIGIOUSLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES IN LUKE 15:11-31
September 20, 2009
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(I credit Ed Gungor for the title of this message. His book entitled "Religously Transmitted Diseases" served as a jumping off point for me to write this sermon.)
Have you noticed all of the advertising in the last month promoting flu vaccinations?
My son brought home a letter asking us as parents if we wanted to get him vaccinated with a flu-nasal spray.
Instead of a shot he would get spray the vaccination up into his nose and that’s how it would be administered.
There are some nasty viruses out there right now.
The big one this year is THE SWINE FLU.
Swine flu is a new virus that was first detected in people in America in April of this year.
It’s a new virus and is considered highly contagious.
There are many diseases out there you can get, swine flu is just one of many we know about.
Swine flu is highly contagious and is transmitted through coughing, sneezing, touching something or someone with the virus on it and then touching their own nose or mouth.
So there are diseases we catch like this.
There are also STD’S: Sexually Transmitted Diseases people can get.
We know how these are transmitted.
But did you know there are other kinds of diseases, not sexual but spiritual?
Just like there are Sexually Transmitted Diseases, there are also Religiously Transmitted Diseases.
These can be caught by practicing one’s religion.
Today I want to talk with you on the subject, “Religiously Transmitted Diseases” from Luke 15:1-31.
Specifically we’re going to look together at 2 kinds of religiously transmitted diseases that you and I are susceptible to catching if we’re not careful.
One day Jesus was spending some time with questionable people; people with questionable moral backgrounds.
Luke 15:1 tells us, “Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.”
When Jesus spoke, it wasn’t always the religious people who came to hear him speak. Many times unchurched people, unreligious people came to hear Jesus speak.
Something about Jesus and His message spoke to these spiritual outsiders.
I say outsiders because they weren’t really on the inside of faith or spirituality. They were on the fringe the margins of their society, not welcome in the temples or places of worship.
But they were welcome around Jesus. Jesus routinely welcomed sinful people into His presence.
And Jesus was judged harshly for it. He was criticized for spending so much time with them. Jesus was actually accused by some of becoming like them, because he was spending so much time with them.
Luke 7:34-35 tells us, “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’. But wisdom is justified by her children.”
It would be like Jesus, sitting in a bar today, talking with drunks and outcasts, and a church member seeing him and accusing him of being drunk or abusing something. It’s guilt by association.
Even though Jesus was never a drunk or a glutton. But they were right about one thing. Jesus was a friend to sinners and tax collectors.
And that offended people. They couldn’t understand why Jesus hung out with these kinds of people.
Jesus told 3 stories in Luke 15 in a moment when He was being judged for his friendships.
Luke 15:2-3 say, “And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’ So He spoke this parable to them.”
The reason Jesus tells these 3 stories is to respond to the criticisms of the religious leaders.
Today we’re focusing on the third story. You know it as the story of the prodigal son.
Luke 15:11-31. Let’s read it together.
There are two RELIGIOUSLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES that I see in this story.
2 diseases that you and I are susceptible to catching if we’re not careful.
The first disease is what I call…
1. PRODIGAL SON SWINE FLU
What is ‘PRODIGAL SON SWINE FLU’?
Let’s take a closer look through the microscope of scripture and analyze this spiritual virus.
11 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.” – Luke 15:11-16 (NKJV)
How do you know if you have PRODIGAL SON SWINE FLU? WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?
Let’s see if we can name them.
Now if you had the real swine flu, the one the Center for Disease Control labeled a pandemic, you might be experiencing symptoms like fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. You might also have a runny nose, sore throat or nausea and vomiting.
What does a person with ‘PRODIGAL SON SWINE FLU’ experience?
SYMPTOMS OF ‘PRODIGAL SON SWINE FLU’ INCLUDE:
Symptom #1: A fever for ‘the far country’.
When I say ‘fever’ I mean desire. The desire to ‘get away from God’. The desire to get out from under God’s authority. To strike out on one’s own, apart from God, to live one’s own life and do one’s own thing.
Not wanting to submit to God’s will or wishes for your life.
One of the things we miss about this story, is that both of these boys are related to the Father.
In other words, because all three parables have to do with lost things, we assume Jesus is talking about going after people who are unchurched and unsaved.
But in the context of the story, actually, both of these sons are “in the father’s family”.
We often miss the fact that this younger son, before he ventured off in the wrong direction, once held a firm position within His father’s house.
This younger son knew the position he held, he knew his privileges, he was an insider.
He had access to everything the Father gave him. But he threw it all away to pursue his own vision of what his life could be like.
The far country in this story represents being far from God. It represents moving in a direction that is opposite of where God is.
It’s walking away from the Lord, his House, His family.
Wanting to experience all that the world had to offer he left his Father and went seeking a different life.
Do you ever struggle with a ‘fever for the far country’? Do you ever secretly wish you could just get out of the church and away from God?
I believe that part of the appeal of the far country to this younger son was the mystery around it.
The far country was not something he’d ever really experienced. He grew up in his father’s house not the far country. So, he was curious about it.
He probably thought, “What did the far country hold for him? What pleasures, what fun, what excitement? What fun was he missing out on? What good things was His father withholding from him by keeping him at his house?
This is always the appeal of the ‘far country’. Christians who have walked with God for years suddenly get an itch to experience something new. They get bored or tired with their Father’s house and want some new excitement in their life.
There was a man in the Bible named Asaph who wrote about this in Psalm 73.
Asaph was experiencing a desire similar to the prodigal son’s desire, a fever for the far country.
1 God is truly good to Israel,
to those who have pure hearts.
2 But I had almost stopped believing;
I had almost lost my faith
3 because I was jealous of proud people.
I saw wicked people doing well. – Psalm 73:1-3 (NCV)
Asaph saw people in the far country have fun, living high on the hog, spending their days “eating, drinking and being merry” and he wondered in verses 13-14:
12 These people are wicked,
always at ease, and getting richer.
13 So why have I kept my heart pure?
Why have I kept my hands from doing wrong?
14 I have suffered all day long;
I have been punished every morning. – Psalm 73:12-14 (NCV)
He says, “I look at the far country and all they’re doing is partying. I want to party. I’m over here in my father’s house, killing my self trying to do the right thing, and all those other people are having so much fun doing the wrong thing. Why am I doing this?”
Have you ever felt like that? Like you were missing out on all the fun because you were trying to live like Christ?
The prodigal felt this way. So he left. He made the choice to leave his father’s house.
And do you know what the father did? Absolutely nothing. In fact, he gave him the money he eventually used to buy an hour with a prostitute and alcohol to get drunk with.
What kind of father is that? What kind of father would let his son go like that?
It’s hard for us to understand this about God the Father.
This father let his son leave without so much as a protest or warning speech.
Why? Why did He just give him all the inheritance and let him leave like that?
This is part of love. This is the aspect of God’s character we find hard to deal with. What’s ironic about this story is that Jesus told it and used it to talk about finding something that had been lost.
But this father doesn’t go after the son. He lets the son go, get himself good and lost, and then come home before he does anything.
Richard Bach said, “If you love something, set it free; it if comes back it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was.”
One of the marks of God’s love is that it is a love He does not force upon us. You are free to accept or reject God’s love.
The decision is yours. You may come and go as you please in your father’s house. This is called GRACE.
You are free to stay or you are free to leave. You are free.
The fever for the far country for this younger son came from a misunderstanding of His father’s character.
Symptom #2: A headache full of lies
This prodigal son believed a lie about the far country and about his own father.
All along he felt imprisoned, chained up to His father’s house, His father’s ways, the rules he thought he was being forced to follow.
The truth, however, is that he was free all along. No one was forcing him to stay.
He believed a lie that the far country would finally give him the freedom he longed for when in reality he was free in His father’s house all along.
Christians think…
• If I could just do with my body whatever I want to do with my body with whomever I want to do it, without God coming down on me that would be freedom.
• If I could just spend my money on whatever I wanted to spend it on whenever I wanted, that would be freedom.
And the truth is that’s a lie. That is not freedom. That is chaos. That is confusion. That is slavery.
15-18So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
19I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
20-21As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
22-23But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. – Romans 6:15-23 (The Message)
This younger brother hits rock bottom. You can’t get much lower than sharing slop with the pigs.
The pigs part of this story would have been especially offensive to the Pharisees and scribes listening.
Remember…Jesus started telling this story when these Scribes and Pharisees began criticizing him.
Jews didn’t eat pork. They considered it filthy, unclean.
To these Jews listening to Jesus’ story, this young man would have done the worst kind of sinful acts and in their eyes, had become too filthy for forgiveness.
They would have viewed this young man as “not deserving” of forgiveness.
Which is why Jesus says there’s a second son in this story. He’s known as the Elder Brother.
And this older son/brother emerges in Jesus’ story around verse 25.
25 “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’
28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ – Luke 15:25-30 (NKJV)
The first part of the story is wonderful. It’s a homecoming. A father and a lost son reunited. It warms the heart.
But there is a darker side to this story. And it lies within this older brother.
The older brother is working in the field. He comes back home and hears a party.
He asks what’s going on. “Your brother, the one we thought was lost and gone forever, he’s come home.”
And this older brother becomes very angry. I imagine his face turned red as a sense of moral outrage surged up his spine.
“What? You mean to tell me that my father has let him come home again? How could he? Hasn’t he always taught me to do what is right? Hasn’t he always told me to be obedient and I’ll be rewarded? And look, my brother blows our money, embarrases our family and he gets a heroes welcome? This isn’t fair.”
TIME OUT! What I’ve just described to you is the second religiously transmitted disease.
The second RELIGIOUSLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE is
2. ELDER BROTHER BUG
There’s a virus running through this older brother that only comes to the surface when he thinks his father is not being fair. This infection that the older brother is carrying around inside of him stays hidden, out of plain sight for a while.
But this situation is more than he can take.
He refuses to even welcome his brother home.
The father comes out and pleads with him to come in.
And the older brother reveals why he’s so angry.
Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ – Luke 15:29-30 (NKJV)
I guess there’s a part of me that says, “Hmm. He does have a point.”
It does appear that the father has not really been all that fair in his parenting.
It does seem he’s shown favoritism toward his younger, wilder son.
The older brother sees himself as the responsible one. The good one. The obedient son.
He’s quick to point out to his father that he’s been serving for many years, that he’s abided by his father’s rules and that this is not right.
All his life he’s stayed close to the house and helped his father.
For what? To see this? Well, why shouldn’t he just go off and do the same thing then? If that’s how father is going to be.
What reward is there for me? In all I’ve done for you Dad.
How do you know if you have ELDER BROTHER BUG?
SYMPTOMS OF ‘ELDER BROTHER BUG’ INCUDE:
SYMPTOM #1: The feeling that I must perform well for God to accept me.
Uppermost in this elder brother’s mind is this issue of performance.
When Jesus first introduces the ‘older brother’ in the story he is performing out in the field.
He’s working hard, he’s at his post, doing what he’s supposed to be doing. When his father asks him to join the celebration, he gets mad and points out that he kept all the rules.
And not just once in a while, but for many years. He consistently been faithful and loyal.
This older brother has completely misunderstood how things work in his father’s house.
Although by this time in his life he ought to know. He’s been in his father’s house for many years. But he doesn’t get it.
This entire time, this older brother has been hard at work, keeping his fingers crossed, hoping that one day his father will notice his work and accept him because he has earned it.
In his mind, the older brother believes he’s earned his father’s acceptance because he has performed well, not like his younger brother who has been a whopping failure.
And now the older brother is realizing that the house rules were different than he thought.
That his father’s love and acceptance is not based on his performance but on the Father’s gracious nature.
This older son’s father is a man of grace. He’s forgiven the prodigal son. Brought him back in and restored him to his place of fellowship in his house.
And the older brother can’t wrap his mind around this fact. The entire time he thought if he performed well, did what was right, that His father would accept him.
And now, he’s seeing, perhaps for the first time that his father’s love has nothing to do with whether or not he personally performs well.
Do you ever feel like you have to perform for God to accept you? Do you ever feel like that?
SYMPTOM #2: Doing the right thing from the wrong motive.
You see, the father tells his older upset son, “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.” – Luke 15:31-32 (NKJV)
The older brother for all these years has been working under the assumption that one day all of this will be his if he just works hard and doesn’t quit.
And the father says, “No. You don’t have to work for it. It’s already yours.”
This father says, “You are always with me. And all that I have is yours.”
He doesn’t say, “Will be once you’ve proved to me that you can peform up to my standards and expectations.”
He says, “It is…present tense, right now, yours.”
You can stop trying to perform your way into my heart. Son, you’re already there.
Have you ever felt God say that to you? Have you ever felt God whisper “You’re okay. You’re mine and I love you.”
Ever felt that from God?
This elder brother felt his father’s affirmation and love in this moment, what he’d been working for all these years, he already possessed.
Through the grace of his loving Father.
CONCLUSION
Today, we’ve seen 2 RELIGIOUSLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES that infect many people.
Next week I’m starting a new series called “LIFE’S HEALING CHOICES: HEALING FOR YOUR HURTS, HANG UPS AND HABITS.”
For the next 8 weeks we’re going to take a journey into the heart of God.
We’re joining thousands of other churches for the national launch date of this spiritual growth campaign.
This spiritual growth series is based on the 8 beatitudes of Jesus.
There’s also a book that we can read as we’re moving together through this series.
Please sign up in the back if you want us to order you a copy.
