ACT THREE: Redefining Sin
Inspired by and parts based on Tim Kellers book “The Prodigal God”
luke 15: 11 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ’Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 "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.
17 "When he came to his senses, he said, ’How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 20 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.
28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ’Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 31 "’My son,’ the father said, ’you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’"
The past 4 weeks we have been on a journey through Luke 15.
The story of the Prodigal God… His Extravagant Grace…
Jesus is speaking with tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees and teachers… speaking about the idea of lostness, sin, and the relationship to the father.
Jesus is teaching a radical message that was completely different than anything the world had known.
IN this story Jesus redefines sin and lostness for each of the audience members… and the invitation is still the same… with arms open wide the Father is waiting and comes out to both sons… wanting them to come into the feast… but they must choose…
At this stage of my life there have been times I was the younger son… running with my own ambition, ideas, and selfish desires…
Then like the younger son I had moments of regret, and coming up with plans on how to fix it all… realizing my plans would only take me so far and only bring so much fulfillment, if any… 3 days before my 16th birthday I was arrested on base with a group of friends… and like the pigsty for the younger son, this was my moment of reality… HOW DO I WANT TO LIVE? By my own standard and ideas… or is there a better way… for I was turned off by RELIGIOSITY… this false sense of superiority and often this view that you didn’t ask questions, you just accepted…
God’s grace was there for me as I had parents that had learned how to give enough space for me to make even stupid choices, yet enough guidance to know they were really right and I had a path for help when I wanted it…
My parents had nights, days, and months where they looked on the horizon for me… hoping I would make better decisions… hoping I would come home to God and walk with Him.
Another part of my journey at certain points I was afraid of becoming the older son… judgmental, caught up in my list of moral conformity, and holding that over the heads of others… so quickly a desire to be holy and walk with God can become extreme and legalistic… ALMOST AS IF SATAN KNEW IF HE CAN’T KEEP US FROM GOD HE WILL PUSH US OVER THE EDGE TO THE OTHER EXTREME.
Then I learned over and over the same lesson… GOD’S GRACE.
Something I didn’t deserve, something I could not earn, but something that was there for me when I was ready to reach out to Him.
My sin happened in the name of self-discovery… and in the name of self-righteousness and judgementalism. My sin happened through selfish pride… and through selfish piety/holiness.
This is where Jesus is redefining sin…
Redefining Sin
Jesus shows what are 2 opposing worldviews… represented in the younger and older son… these 2 opposing views are still what exists today…
The parable discusses a Father [God] who has two sons…
In the story both sons sin… Younger – through self-discovery; Older son – through moral conformity
• The person of moral conformity says “I’m not going to do what I want, but what tradition and the community wants me to do.”
• The person choosing the way of self-discovery says “I’m the only one who can decide what is right or wrong for me. I’m going to live as I want to live and find my true self and happiness that way.”
Our Western society is so deeply divided between these two approaches that hardly anyone can conceive of any other way to live.
• The moral conformist say “the immoral people – the people who do their own thing – are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution.”
• The advocates of self-discovery say “The bigoted people – the people who say we have the truth – are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.”
• Each side says: “Our way is the way the world will be put to rights, and if you are not with us, you are against us.”
Does everyone fall into one or the other of these categories?
Yes and no…
• Some have temperaments that dispose them to one of these types of living.
• Other flounder back and forth between the two… first trying one strategy and then the other in different seasons of their lives
• Some people combine both approaches… traditional looking elder brothers that, as a release valve, maintain a secret life of younger brother behavior.
o We have seen this on TV as police sting operations uncover priests, rabbi’s, and pastors caught in horrible behavior.
• Then there are the many people, very liberated and irreligious in their views and lifestyle, who regard religious conservatives with all the self-righteousness and condescension of the worst Pharisees.
Keller says… Despite these variations, these are still only two primary approaches to living. The message of Jesus’ parable is that both of these approaches are wrong. And His parable illustrates a radical alternative!
Jesus stands in the middle and declares they both are wrong! That it is only through relationship with the Father that one comes to God!
THE TWO LOST SONS
Most people think that sin is the failing to keep God’s rules of conduct [like the younger son in the story]. While sin is not less than that Jesus says it is much more and the older son is even more dangerous… for he is lost and doesn’t know it…
The danger of the older son –
• For the older risks losing his faith because he believes God owes him…
• If I do right, God owes me answered prayers, a good life, and a ticket to heaven when I die. But is it just the list of do’s and do nots? Or something deeper!
o In Peter Schaeffer’s Play Amadeus
o Story of Salieri
Makes a prayer before God…
I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of. “Lord, make me a great composer! Let me celebrate your glory through music – and be celebrated myself! Make me famous through the world, dear God! Make me immortal! After I die let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote! In return I vow I will give you y chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life. And I will help my fellow man all I can. Amen and amen! Salieri does just that, begins a life under this vow
• Lives a life of chastity, never touches women
• Works diligently at his music
• Teaches many musicians for free
• Tirelessly helps the poor.
• His career goes well and he thinks God is holding his end of the deal up…
Then Mozart appears on the scene. Genius, prodigy, and God had bestowed on him an obvious gift and ability.
This precipitates a crisis of faith for Salieri and his words sound similar to the older son in our parable…
• It was incomprehensible… here I was denying all my natural lust in order to deserve God’s gift and there was Mozart indulging his in all directions – even though engage to be married – and no rebuke at all.
• Finally Salieri says to God, “from now on we are enemies, you and I… and works to destroy Mozart.
You see Salieri’s efforts were without heart change… they were selfish in nature… the minute he realized his service to God and the poor wasn’t gaining him the glory he craved, his heart became murderous…
• This crisis of faith happens for many… the live by moral conformity, doing the right thing, and helping people along the way.
o A crisis occurs… a child lost, a horrible event, a disease…
o And then we feel God has not held up His end of the deal… and we shout with fists raised at heaven… like Salieri our faith was simply selfishness wrapped in a good disguise…
The sin of the younger son was to rebel … and the sin of the older was the same selfishness in a different package.
Jesus shows us that a man who has violated virtually nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors can be every bit as spiritually lost as the most immoral of people.
This means that Jesus’ message – which we call the Gospel – is all together something different than the opposing two world views alive today.
• Everyone is wrong, everyone is lost… but everyone is loved, sought for by God… we are all sinners (sound familiar) saved by Grace.
• But elder brothers say “the world is full of two people… good people, like us, and bad people, who are the real problem with the world.
• The younger brother says intolerance is out, and everything goes…
• Jesus says, Luke 18:14 – the humble are in, the proud are out.
Humble your hearts… Run to me… Run to me… everything I have is yours but come home, come into the feast of my love… for the path to the Father is through the Son, Jesus Christ. YOUTH – HUMAN VIDEO
