“Free: To Love”
Well good morning everyone….As always it is good to be with you this morning…today we are beginning a three week series and honestly I’m glad it is only three weeks because I only have three suits…if it was one more week…well..the only other matching outfit I have is a giant Charlie brown costume…there it is in all its glory. I dressed like that for our AWANA harvest party, and I’ve never felt so old in my life…all the kids were like, what are you…like a ginormous bee or something…no I’m Charlie brown…and they were like, Charlie who..who is that…it’s a cartoon character I watched growing up…from the 80s…and when I said the 80s they looked at me like I was from another dimension…you were alive in the 80s…how old are you…I honestly probably could have said I had a pet dinosaur that I rode to caveman school and they would have believed it…If they saw the Flintstones they would probably think that’s what life was like way back then…and if anyone says comes up to me afterwards and asks me who Flintstones are…I’m gonna cry
You know…it is crazy how fast time flies though…I mean to me the 80s seemed not that long ago, but that was like 25 – 30 years ago…And because time flies by so fast…we really need to make an effort to use the time we have been given wisely…you see this in the Bible in Psalm 90, where Moses is praying to God, and in verse 12 he says, So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom..” In other words…God, help us to live with an understanding and appreciation that our days are numbered…because if we can understand that our time is limited…that it is going to run out…then we will use it wisely…we won’t waste it because one day…there will be no more of it left…and as depressing as that might sound…when we understand that…when we number our days…it frees us up to live life more fully…it frees us up to live a life with much fewer regrets…because all a regret is a sense of loss and remorse over something we spent time doing or not doing…and if we understand our time is limited, then we won’t want to waste it doing things will later regret…
And if there is one thing that is true about everyone one in this room…it is we want to live a life with as few regrets as possible…so that …as Moses says, “we may get a heart of wisdom.” I want to spend the next three weeks taking a look at three of the biggest traps that keep us from living the life that God wants us to live…and the crazy thing about those traps is that…we set them up ourselves, and then fall right into them…and we do that over and over again…but I’m telling you as of right now…we are not going to do that anymore…because we all know we are on the clock…our days are numbered…so let’s make them count…let’s live them to the fullest and stop sabotaging ourselves…because we have all been called by God to live for something greater…we are going to call this series Free…because we are going to free ourselves from these traps…and choose to live for something greater..
The first trap we are going to take apart and free ourselves from is the trap of judgment… ultimately judgment keeps us from love and joy… and Jesus makes that very clear in a passage most of us are very familiar with, which is the story of the Prodigal son found in Luke chapter15, but before we jump there would you please join me in a word of prayer. PRAY
So, as I just mentioned we will be spending our time in Luke 15:11-32, Luke 15:11-32. Now in Luke 15:1 it says "Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. …which first of all makes me feel bad for the tax collectors because they were so hated they weren’t even grouped with the notorious sinners…they get their own special designation…and maybe with April 15th approaching…you might be thinking…amen Bible…amen … as Jesus is talking with them in Luke 15 he tells this group three parables. The first is about a shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep he has to find the one lost sheep…second is about a woman who turns everything over in her house to find one lost coin, and finally the third parable is about a lost son. Now of course we are all very familiar with the story of the lost son, often called the prodigal son, the son who makes a decision to waste his life…prodigal is from the Latin word prodigus, which means to be wasteful and excessive…
Verse 11 the parable begins, “And He (Jesus) said, “A man had two sons.” So we have three main characters in this story….we have the father with the two sons. And immediately in verse 12 the focus goes to the younger son, 2 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
What the son was asking in verse 12 would have been appalling to the listeners of this parable…usually the wealth of the father would be divided between the sons after the father had died…so basically the son is saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead so I can get my inheritance now, but your not dead, so let’s just say you are dead to me, and give me what’s mine!” You know, that sounds pretty appalling to us today. Now the father could have thrown the son out for saying something so horrible…but he doesn’t…instead he divides up his estate, which blew the mind of the crowd who was listening…the tax collectors were probably like...think of the tax implications man…but too late..
As soon as the fathers possessions are divided up as though he were dead, verse 13 reads, “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living.….the text says he wasted all his money in wild living…we aren’t sure exactly what the loose living entailed, but if you read ahead to verse 30 it involved prostitutes, which is never a good sign, the term loose living is a translation of the Greek zon asotos…this is the only time this phrase is used in the New Testament, and the literal translation is “living as one that cannot be saved.” It must have been quite a party...
So his life plan of cash out, party, and repeat is going great until verse 14 which says, 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
So the money runs out, and the friends disappear, and here comes the famine…it is so bad he is hanging out with pigs…For a Jewish man to be tending pigs…is as low as you can get…pigs were considered extremely unclean…in fact to this day it is still illegal to raise pigs on Israel’s soil….the few farms that do raise them must have them living on platforms so they never touch the ground…pigs are bad news…
So our friend is desperate, stinky, starving, hopeless, alone, and destitute…and as he is stewing with the pigs…beginning in verse 17 says, 17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger!
And in his despair it says that “he came to his senses”…this is the Hebrew expression for “repented”. He has not just come to his senses in the fact that he realized how bad things were, but rather he realized how badly he has failed morally, how greatly he has sinned against God and his father…and so he puts together the speech he wants to tell his Father in verse 18, 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
And don’t we have our little planned speeches when we get into trouble…I remember as a kid I wasn’t allowed to watch rated R movies, TELL STORY…so I walk in the door and as I am walking down the hall I am rehearsing my speech but before I can say a word I hear my mom say from the livingroom, “Dead man walking!”…and my brain totally freezes…the speech falls apart like a dropped glass vase in my mind…I am not sure still to this day exactly what I said or what went down in that livingroom, but I ended up getting grounded for 45 days…you want a good defense lawyer to argue your case… yeah…don’t call me…maybe call Pastor Bern in three years…but not me…
So our wayward and desperate friend has his speech all worked out…and in verse 20 it says, 20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ 22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
And this is the most amazing, unexpected turn of events…and the original audience couldn’t comprehend that a father would do this to a son who treated him so shamefully. The son who told his father your dead to me, the son who liquidated the inheritance on prostitutes, the inheritance that his father had been working his whole life to one day give to his sons, the son who couldn’t even stand to be in the same country as his father….has returned…now filthy, reeking of pig, shoeless, half-starved, humiliated, and utterly destitute…if there was ever an opportunity for a well deserved I told you so…this is it…but rather than shoving a finger into his son’s chest…the father literally runs to his son (even though running at that time in that culture was considered very disgraceful for a man…which just for the record is my kind of culture) so he runs to the son and….hugged and kissed him…and not only does the father hug and kiss him…but puts the best robe on him, gives him his ring, gives him shoes…and then kills the fattened calf (which was always saved for only the largest celebrations… side note…whenever people celebrate in the Bible, there is always one animal who isn’t)…and when and there is a huge celebration…and all of this happens so fast that the son didn’t even have time to finish his speech…and this is just incredible and unimaginable…and you know, the really ironic thing about all this is that everything the younger son had hoped to find in the far country, he discovered back home: clothes, friends, joyful celebration, love, and the assurance of a future.
And we all think that is such a cool story…and it is…I want you to think back for a moment…if you could wind back the clock because time goes by so fast...think back...where were you when you looked around at your life like the prodigal and said, this is not working, and placed your faith in Christ. And when you did that picture what it was like to see the father running towards you, his eyes filled with compassion, to see tears of joy streaming down his face…what did it feel like to feel the warm embrace of a loving father…who wouldn’t even let you finish saying you were sorry because he was so happy to see you…and then the father took off your sin stained garments and covered you in his best robe, gave you his family ring, put new shoes on your tired feet, and you hear him say, come into my house and we are going to celebrate like we have never celebrated before because you my son, you my daughter…have returned…I have been watching the road every single day waiting for you…and now, now, you are home.
That….that feeling you have when you picture that is the joy of your salvation…it is something that you should never forget…that we should always celebrate the whole year round…it should be the current that runs daily through our lives… and we think man that is a great story…a great reminder…and as cool as that may be…and it is pretty cool...that isn’t the point of the story at all…
If you remember at the beginning of our journey I mentioned there are three characters in this parable…we’ve met the younger son and the father, now let’s pick it up in verse 25 and meet the older son.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on.27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’ 28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him,29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’ 31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”
And as a parent...this passage is so discouraging to me because it makes me think...you mean sometimes your kids never grow out of the whole, "That's not fair!" thing...that's horrible...I've had my 3 year old daughter say...David's bandaid is bigger that mine...and I'm like...they are from the same box...they are the exact same...it's impossible they are different...and besides...you don't even need a bandaid in the first place...to which she replies...well it's not fair you put David's on first....Daddy is going to go for a walk for a couple of minutes...go talk to Mommy...
What seems strange about this parable though and begs the question, “Why the older brother…I mean, in the parable of the lost sheep…the sheep is found and there is rejoicing…the end…and the parable of the lost coin…the coin is found and there is rejoicing…the end…so you would think in the parable of the lost son…the son is found…and there is rejoicing…the end…but there is this older brother…why is he here…in fact…why is Jesus even telling these parables…if you would look back with me all the way to the beginning of chapter in verse 1, “Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! 3 So Jesus told them this story:"
So all the parables of Luke 15 are directed not towards the sinners and tax collectors, but towards the Pharisees and the scribes who were grumbling that Jesus would associate with tax collectors and sinners… Jesus goes to extraordinary lengths by telling three separate parables to clearly establish the character of God to the Pharisees and scribes…and that is that he is a loving God who has a heart for the lost, and he goes to great lengths to find them and save them…and when a someone who is far from God repents there is a great rejoicing in heaven. And everyone in all three parables is excited about this, except for the older brother…and the older brother is a warning given to the scribes and Pharisees who couldn’t stand to see God showering his grace on the tax collectors and sinners.
The older brother was furious about the celebration for his younger brother, the Pharisees were furious that Jesus would spend time with sinners…The older brother had so much disdain for his younger brother that he refuses to call him brother, instead referring to him as, “this son of yours” when talking to his father…the Pharisees had so much disdain for “sinners and tax collectors” that they would have absolutely nothing to do with them and criticized those who did….and finally the older brother didn’t want anything to do with a father who would be so gracious and loving…the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with a Father who was gracious and loving…
The older brother is a warning to all of us…he is there as a reminder that we are called to love first…We are called, as followers of a loving God…to love first…not judge first…REPEAT... John 3:16…For God so loved (he loved first)….Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (he loved first)…and that is just two of hundreds of verses that show us that God loved first…and we are called to do the same…I mean that is the beauty of being a Christ follower…it isn’t just religion…because religion essentially says, change and you can join us…in other words we will judge you, and if you are deemed worthy, we will love you…a Christ follower says, join us, and you will change…in other words God loves you, we love you, and that love will change you…
When we judge first, we are falling into a trap that prevents us from loving as Christ loved us…and just like the older brother, we are left out in the cold with only our self righteous piety to keep us warm…I don’t want that for anyone in here…I feel sad for the older brother…Jesus is saying in Luke 15, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate…and the older brother says no, no, no…
Let me bring this down to a practical level in our church by asking this question…when someone walks through those doors in the back there, are they going to find the church of the loving father, or the church of the older brother…are they going to find love, or judgment... you and I will answer that question based on how we treat them...and sometimes we do great...but unfortunately sometimes we don't do so great...if I had a dollar for every time a new person has told me they were asked to move because they were sitting in someone’s spot in the pew…I could buy several drinks at Starbucks…and that’s saying something because those drinks aren’t cheap…I’m just going to say, if we are comfortable with Jesus taking our place on the cross, but we aren’t comfortable with someone taking our "normal" spot in the pew…we have a problem…we are not connecting the dots…we are judging first…not loving first…
And you know the truth is, 95% of the time, we have no idea what a person went through during the week, or even what happened right before they made it to church...just a few weeks ago my wife Michelle was pretty late to church because literally 5 minutes before church she asked our son David to brush his teeth, and when she went to check on him he somehow had gotten toothpaste everywhere (except on his teeth)...and while she was dealing with that Emily found a jar full of marbles and she decided the best place for those marbles would be to stuff them all down her tights...so Michelle goes to deal with that and while she is trying to get all the marbles out of Emily's tights...our cat jumps up on our bed and starts barfing everywhere....Happy Sunday!...
And I’m not saying I’m perfect in all this…several years ago during first service I was sitting in church and I saw someone a few pews over who was in the news for doing something really bad...and I was so angry at what they had done I wanted that person to leave…I was angry they were at my church…because in my mind I judged this person’s sin as greater and more powerful than God’s grace…you think it’s bad when someone didn’t want someone sitting in their pew…I didn’t want this person sitting in my church…and in the story of the prodigal son, who does that sound like to you…that’s sad I judged first, and I don’t know what was going on in that person’s heart…but if they were sorry for what they had done, and if they were coming back home to God…here am I, a pastor at the church this miracle is happening it at, and I am to judgmental to celebrate that…you see how terrible that is…do you see how we miss out on what God is doing in someone's life…over a pew seat...over being self righteous...not worth it...not worth it...
We have been given a command to love first, no matter who it is, 1 John 4:7-8 says, "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love." So, when you are at church, when you are at work, when you are at home, wherever you are…ask yourself…am I loving first…and I know that is hard…it is so much easier to judge first…I mean you can pass a judgment on someone in a flash without even thinking..we are so good at it...find something wrong with them…cause there is something wrong with everyone…and then dismiss them and get on with your life…it is very easy…but it's very wrong...so to help us, to keep us from falling into the judgment trap…I want you to ask yourself a simple question when you are interacting with someone…and the questions is this, “Am I treating this person the way I want God to treat me?”...”Am I treating this person the way I want God to treat me?”…that is an important question to ask because good news…that is how God designed the world to work...In Matthew 7 Jesus says“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.”…and similarly in Matthew 6 he says, 14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”…how we treat others greatly affects how God is going to treat us…
And you can look at that as a warning...and that's very fair...but I choose to look at this as an amazing opportunity...we have this incredible opportunity to be different from the rest of the world...when the rest of the world is quick to judge, we are called to be quick to love...when other religions of the world say change, and then you can join us...we say join us, and God's love will change you...free yourself from judging first, and then you will be free to love first...and great will your reward be....that is a promise... In Luke 6:35-36 Jesus says, “Love your enemies! Do good to them...Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate."
So don't ever find yourself stomping your feet in anger outside the Father's house, refusing to go inside and celebrate that a prodigal son or daughter has returned home... you don't want to stay there...because that is where regret will be found…I mean no one, at the end of their lives, is ever going to say, "wow, I wish I was more judgmental towards others, I really missed out"...so if you find yourself there this morning...it's not too late to change your attitude, uncross your arms...relax the frown...loosen your shoulders...free yourself from judging first…put on your party hat, and go inside...and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate as Jesus says in Luke 15...and Love First...because that is exactly how God treated you...will you join me in prayer...
