This is Our Story
Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)
Brad Bailey – November 9, 2019
Series #46 / Luke 15:11-32
Intro
As we continue in our extended season of Encountering Jesus through the Gospel of Luke…we are challenged to face that we haven’t understood the actual story that we are a part of.
It’s like that point in a movie where everything you thought was a certain way…is suddenly given a twist…and you think “What?”…and then you have to reconsider everything…and you realize you had been making certain assumptions. Some may remember the end of the original Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston’s is shocked to learn that he didn’t land on another planet, but on Earth, just in a future where humanity has been mostly wiped out and subjugated by apes. Or there is The Sixth Sense (1999)…Shutter Island… and of course, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) where the great hero is fighting the villain Darth Vader… what is simply the ultimate good verses evil…until it’s not that simple…as the villain Darth claims that he is actually Luke Skywalkers father.
Today… Jesus tells us that our story is not what we may assume.
Last week… religious leaders,,, problem with why he is welcoming bad people around him. When human life believes that it is simply good people and bad people… naturally they wonder… how could Jesus be representing God…with bad people coming to him.
Jesus explains what is actually unfolding with a story… actually using three versions…and this third is the larger treatment… the expanded version.
First two stories speak quite simply about the central figures seeking to find what was lost. In this extended story…Jesus expands on the story of our lives.
Luke 15:11-32 (NIV) ?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. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 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. 21 "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. 25 "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' 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.'"
Pray: With these words…You are telling us the true story that explains our lives… and the true hope at hand. May we have ears to hear.
With this story… I believe that Jesus is telling us our own story.
This is the general storyline that is playing out between the Creator of our existence…and ourselves. It may play out in different cultures …with different levels of drama… with different nuances…but I believe it identifies the core dynamics that play out in our own lives.
And that is what I want to do…to help us identify the common story that Jesus presents to us.
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Luke 15:11-13?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.
Jesus begins by stating…"There was a man who had two sons”
The story is rooted in a father and his sons.
Clearly Jesus was describing how they should understand the nature of God.
No one understood this to imply that God was male. God is spirit and cannot be understood as bound by human gender as such.
Understanding that God is our Father is to understand that we are persons… created from the nature and will of a personal source. We are not merely material compounds with no source of meaning or moral center beyond survival. Understanding that God is our Father represents His being our Source… and the strength and authority that he bears.
We were created as those who would bear God’s image in the created world… but we broke that bond…. and that brokenness has been passed along in countless tragic ways.
The human experience is one in which we are missing that bond… looking for that bond. [1a]
When my kids were very young…one of the hardest parts of traveling was being away from them. I recall my daughter Cate… when just 22 months old… hard so I made cards for my wife to give them on the consecutive Saturdays while I was away. In one I placed a leftover passport photo for each one. When I spoke with my wife from oversees… she described Cate holding the picture in her little hand saying “Dada” as she walked around the house looking for me.
> We all have a picture… we’re all looking for our ultimate father… though often the picture is distorted. [1b]
Jesus came with good news… you have an ultimate father who is the source of your existence and life. His Father…is our Father….and they are united as God to bring us into that union.
"There was a man who had two sons.”
They were his own… not unrelated or unconnected… they were HIS SONS… his children.
If you wonder if you are really loved… how God feels about you… hear what Jesus is saying… ‘a father had two sons’… God looks at you as his child. [1c]
…But now Jesus describes what has led to the state we are in.
The younger son demands his inheritance. … he wants what is the father’s … the inheritance he would gain because of his relationship as a child to the father… only he doesn’t want to live in relationship to the father. Such an inheritance would only be fully transferred when the father’s passes away.
Since he was the younger of two brothers, he would’ve gotten probably 40 percent or something like that. “Give me my part of the inheritance. Liquidate your part of the estate that would go to me.
He essentially destroyed the family estate by insisting it be liquidated, the land, the cattle, whatever it was.
> Any Jewish person of the time… would have heard the implication – ‘the son wants the Father dead’… it’s a statement so horrific… a request so inherently offensive.
Even though you’re not dead, I want your things, but I don’t want you. I don’t want you involved with my life. I don’t want you governing my things. I want your things. I don’t want you. Give them to me. I’m leaving.”
So our story begins… with God creating us to share life an serve the creation with him…but then… as Jesus identifies…
We declare our independence…wanting creation, without the Creator…the goods apart from the governance.
Our story is not one of simply breaking rules…but of breaking relationship.
This is a declaration of independence. We have said is essence “my will be done.” When we want to rule our own lives… we are essentially claiming our own kingdom.
I know this in myself.
You have to understand in that culture this was an absolute outrage.
The consequence was set… and severe… the son would be considered dead … cut off from life … if not actually killed.
> Then comes the equally provocative part of the story.
The father grants him the inheritance… he lets him have the goods… and to walk away.
This captures the truth that God provides his "property" to all people. As Jesus had noted before, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45).
God's love give us "free will" to either obey or reject him.
With that …the son leaves for a distant country. When Jesus says, "and left for a distant country," he indicates much more than the desire of a young man to see more of the world. He is giving up his identity… his source of belonging… believing he can forge his own.
Next point in our story is that…
We began to live in a foreign place.
He didn’t simply leave a physical place… but a personal place. [1d]
He is not lost because no one offered any sense of direction, He is lost because he chose to live outside the only relationship that could ground and honor his true nature. [2]
What I have found is that the most deceptive dynamic in life…is related to the nature of freedom.
The son sought what he believed was freedom… but he wasn’t free… he was lost… outside of life.
Here Jesus is revealing that the idea of ‘becoming our own person’ has a deceptive dimension. When we decide to just “do our own thing”… we actually BECOME our thing.
We become fooled into believing that there is a life of self-determination that lies outside living in relationship to the sovereign control of a good father. So we pursue what tries to be construed as freedom… freedom from control.
But the whole impulse to declare our freedom… has bought into the lie that we are not free. The truth is that we already have freedom… freedom to leave home… even as Jesus describes here.
The truth is that we always were given freedom. The most shocking statement in this story is not simply what the son says he wants… but that the father gave him the inheritance and let him go. God who is ultimately and sovereignly in control… grants to us the freedom to leave. What we thought was our freedom to a world of control…is really our freedom to enter the consequences such autonomy… of what exists outside God’s goodness and life. There is one existence created… it was good.. and if we leave… we are simply outside.
We cannot find ourselves in ourselves. True freedom is never found in autonomy. What he thought was independence was isolation.
Next point in our story is that…
We waste our life… seeking what can no longer be found.
The younger son… discovers that life in the ‘distant country’ ultimately degrades him. His life is exploited… used… because apart from the source of love… at some level we will become reduced to what we have… and one day the material external stuff runs out.
And he is left empty.
We are reminded of the added disregard… of taking what still belonged to the father and squandering them… even as we can with the goodness and gifts of life.
We take the gifts God has given us… and use them to try to find value and love. We use our intellect…our wealth… our bodies… to try and find value…and love.
We can all find ourselves…in a distant country… a foreign land… where in our misguided independence… we’ve lost our identity… where we sense our lives are being reduced… our personhood is being exploited. Not simply the story of skid row… but also of the successful… intellectual…. of all who are not at home in their hearts.
> It’s the story of every one of us.
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Luke 15:14-16?14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
Verse 14 – “After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.”
What a picture of a world in a foreign land outside of life with God. Reduced to our material nature… we will spend everything on that which we can never buy. And we will face the famine… we will face a hunger that cannot be met.
He is left with nothing. He hired himself out. He is left feeding pigs… in fact he realizes that the pigs are eating better than he who has to care for them… which any Jewish hearer would hear as the greatest loss of dignity imaginable.
Next point in our story is that…
We face the emptiness and loss of our dignity.
There is guilt…but there is more than just legal guilt…there is emptiness. There is the recognition not just that I did something wrong…but that I have lost what I need… lost who I am.
This begins the process of turning. Jesus speaks of the potential to awaken.
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Luke 15:17-20?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.
This is the pivotal moment in what Jesus is describing. It is captured in that little phrase… “When he came to his senses…”
He realizes that the distant country does not offer what he really needs… but also that what he had back at home is what he really needs. As he develops how he will have to address his position in order to find a place back at home… Jesus describes how he recognizes that he had sinned… done great wrong in denying the father his place in his life… and that he did not deserve to be his son… to be his child. So he presumes he is only in the position to be considered a servant.
Next point in our story is that…
Hope begins with coming to our senses…realizing the good we long for… but no longer deserve.
This is not simply a moment of guilt he cannot undue. He realize. that there is a good that he has lost… and he says “I will go back to my Father…” and submit. He is aware that there is a good… but that he no longer deserves it. This is very clear.
As Henri Nouwen notes…
“The meaning of the younger son's return is succinctly expressed in the words, "Father, ...I no longer deserve to be called your son." On the one hand the younger son realizes that he has lost the dignity of his sonship, but at the same time that sense of lost dignity makes him also aware that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose.
…When he found himself desiring to be treated as one of the pigs, he realized that he was not a pig but a human being, a son of his father. This realization became the basis for his choice to live instead of to die. [2b]
This is what turning around is like. He knows he that he no longer deserves to be a son. We can imagine what the son must have felt. It’s an intimidating prospect. What will we face?
Notice the change in the posture of this son… he begins his demise by claiming rights that weren’t even his…. And he returns stating he no longer has any right to what had been his… the right to be a son. The son who had once been demanding… now comes undeserving. [2c]
This is the type of sorrow that actually restores us. This is the type of a sorrow that doesn’t just leave us in loss… but leads us home. [2d]
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Luke 15:20-21? "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. 21 "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
The Father doesn’t even let him finish. Why? Because the son is making a case to be accepted as a servant. But the son is a son. That is who he is.
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Luke 15:22-24? 22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
Next point in our story is that…
God as our Father will welcome us with mercy and restore us.
The son comes lost in shame… and how does the Father meet him? As the son begins his long walk of shame…the father runs to meet that shame with that which could not counter it any more clearly. The father runs to him… in a way that would be shameful to the elder father… and he takes a hold of him in the hug that claims him…and he kisses him…and he does this for all to see. He is not shamed to be his father.
And to this… he calls on the whole household to join… to bring…
Sandals - in ancient biblical times only servants and slaves went barefoot. The Father is declaring that he is being restored as a son.
And to this he adds a new robe… a mark of dignity. He has been wearing his own filthy clothes… and he will now receive what God provides. It is symbolic of how God has said when we receive Christ… he will exchange our unrighteousness and cloth us in Christ’s righteousness.
And to this he adds the Ring - It is the granting of authority to a person. Whoever has such a ring has the power of attorney for his master. He has authority, his master’s authority, to make decisions and to help the master govern his realm.
And there is the celebration itself… the son is not merely welcomed…he is celebrated.
This is actually central to the story. You will never know who you really are until you know that when you come home…you are celebrated. Many of you tend to think that God doesn’t really see you… doesn’t really want you. You think you might just get included in a group deal.
> You need to understand…God celebrates YOU when you come home. That is who you are to him.
But the story is not over… it has only helped us understand one part of us… the rebellious part. But what of the part that is good and moral and even religiously so?
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Luke 15:25-27? 25 "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
Luke 15:28-32? 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.'"
In all the years that I have read this story…I have thought of the prodigal son as the main character…the main focus…and the older brother has felt like a small addition Jesus wanted to add.
But as I have focused more on the whole context of what Jesus is engaging… I realize that the older brother is essential to what Jesus is saying.
You may recall this all began with the religious leaders… grumbling about why Jesus was with these bad people. With these three stories he has been describing that those who are lost… being found… returning to where they belong…and that such returning… repenting is something to celebrate.
But now in the older brother… he is telling these religious leaders what they must understand about who they are. And this brother does not just represent them… he represents every person living out the moral paradigm…and the moralist in every one of us. This relates to that part of any of us that might see ourselves in a self-righteous “I am better than others” superiority.
Jesus is showing the more moral people a picture of themselves.
He’s holding a mirror up. He’s saying, “Look at this. This is who you are.”
Jesus brings home the full picture by bring forth that…
Our own self-righteousness “goodness” can refuse the grace of the Father’s heart and home.
As the older brother… the firstborn…he is the deserving brother…and he makes that quite known. The younger brother tried to get control of the father’s things without the father by going away. The older brother tried to get control of the father’s things without the father by staying…. And proving how deserving he is. He doesn’t seem to find value in actually being with the Father…but rather with proving how good he is.
He’s as lost as the younger brother. The central dynamic of every story is that something is lost… not where it is supposed to be. In every single situation you have someone going out to get it back. Now what do you have? You have the older brother… outside of his father’s home… and heart. And the father has gone outside to find him.
Like this elder brother, outwardly we may appear close to home…but inwardly we have wandered.
What we have is a picture of how we can identify with God…and yet not give ourselves to Him.
We can identify as a member of the household…but never enter the heart of the household …never really come inside. We can have access to God’s grace…but not receive it. [2e]
And when we find our well being in being good …more than being found and loved…we will become proud of how dutiful we are… proud in the wrong way. We will lose our humility.
We too might say in our own way….: '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
You can be involved with the father’s work… try to keep his rules… but not understand the father’s heart…not really know him.
What Jesus is getting across here is not just that the elder son is lost in spite of his goodness. What Jesus is getting across here is the elder son is lost because of his goodness. [3] The problem is not doing good…but thinking we are part of the good people in contrast to the bad people… that we part of the group that deserves to be accepted.
Thinking that we should get what we deserve… is a sign that we really don’t understand what we deserve. [4]
Such a posture will resent the grace shown to those we think we are better than.
And so the father must come and say: “Come inside. Come in, my son.”
Closing: This is the story that Jesus tells… about our lives.
It’s a story that includes the rebellious and religious alike… and those who can identify both elements within themselves.
It’s a story that calls out to us: “Come home.”
In whatever ways you may have wandered into the distant country… there is a father who is looking for you… he won’t force you home… but he will see you, even from a long ways off… and wants to embrace you … kiss you.
Closing Prayer:
God, you are the Father I long for. You are the Father of life.
I want to be your child.
I want to honor you as my Father …and live as your child.
Come infuse my life with your divine will.
May I live in the blessing of your deepest affirmation… of being fundamentally wanted.
May I be bound in identity and intimacy with you as the source of all good that exists.
Closing Song: Come Home Running
Resources: Previous series I did entitled “Coming Home” which went through this parable over 4 messages. Then and now, I drew from the great work of Henri Nouwen “The Return of the Prodigal Son”; this time I also drew from Tim Keller’s two messages in 1998, “First Son” and “Second Lost Son.”
Notes:
1a. We are in a fatherless search… a search for all that a father reflects. Thomas Wolfe wrote:
“The deepest search in life , it seemed to me, the thing that in one way or another was central to all living was man’s search to find a father, not merely the father of his flesh, not merely the lost father of his youth, but the image of a strength and wisdom external to his need and superior to his hunger, to which the belief and power of his own life could be united.” – Thomas Wolfe was an American novelist who in his short and tragic life (1900-1939) was preoccupied with themes of lost youth, memory, transience and an insatiable wandering. He was a wanderer who in his brief life made seven voyages to Europe and compulsively explored that continent. He would never own a home or a piece of land. He rarely lived in an apartment for more than a year and more commonly for just a few months. (Thomas Wolfe: Study of a Wanderer by Jon A. Shaw)
The great Christian theologian of modern times, J.I. Packer was asked what is the central distinctive of Christ and Christianity. He responded:
“You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old…. Is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.” (Ed Piorek p. 21-22)
1b. E.T. – the story of a little alien creature who was stranded on earth, with a deep desire to return home to the place where he belonged. In a famous scene E.T. is sending signals over a radio device he has made and the kids who have befriended him ask him what he is doing. He responds with those now famous words, “E.T. phone home.” He is trying to phone home… trying to figure out how to get back to that place he belongs.
> We too have a deep desire to return to that place where we belong… that place where we are loved for who we are. It’s a desire that God our father has placed deep within us. It may often be covered up or confused… but deep down we long to be home in our Father’s house… our Father’s heart. (Piorek, The Father Loves You, p. 159)
> But we like E.T. may be stranded in a far away land… and not know how to get home.
1c. In the Scriptures we hear the words of the disciple John, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)
The Apostle Paul wrote, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received a spirit of adoption When we cry 'Abba,' it is that spirit healing witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:14-16).
1d. As Henri Nouwen describes…
“Leaving home is … is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being.’ Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one.”
2. This is precisely what is described in the account of our beginnings… in the opening book of the Scriptures called Genesis (which means beginnings.) In Genesis, God declares he is creating those who will bear his own image… and that everything is theirs to be stewards of… and he even blesses them as he calls them to and multiply and fill the earth. The one boundary…. Not to eat of the one tree which represents life outside His goodness. To pursue such they will die. But another voice comes along… ‘You won’t die… you will become like god… so declare your independence.’
But they accept the lie of the serpent that they will not die… but rather they will become free to be like God. They eat… and their eyes were opened and they were naked… uncovered… and ashamed. At that point, God finds them hiding… and they explain it is ‘because we were AFRAID.’ They had only known love when they remained within life in relationship with God… but now they have sought to declare and define their own existence and they are left uncovered… and living not in a state of love but fear.
As the Scriptures later would explain… ‘nothing is made perfect in fear’ (1 John 4:18-21)
They are deceived…and exploited. In the original description of Adam and Eve…the serpent slips away… leaving them just where he wanted them… facing the consequences of their own separation from God. In seeking to become more than human we became less than human… in believing we should seek to exist apart from relationship with God… we are lost… and left to a life that will reduce us and exploit because there is a need that all have that is never met and we will try to find it in ways that will never satisfy.
2b. Henri Nouwen, "The Prodigal Son"
2c. As C.S. Lewis states,
“If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again.
. . . Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christinaity begins to talk. When you are sick, you will listen to the doctor.” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Bk 1, Ch 5, p. 38-39
2d. As we Scriptures say:
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. (2 Cor. 7:10)
2e. The Father says, “My son, you have always been with me.” We may assume that he is describing being in good relationship. But clearly the son is actually in defiance of the father. He is the outwardly dutiful and inwardly defiant …operating as one who is deserving.
In John 14:9, Jesus says to one of his disciples Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?” In Matthew 7:22, Jesus says, “On the last day people will come to me and say, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we do mighty deeds in your name? Didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we do miracles in your name?’ ” Jesus will say, “I never knew you.”
3. As Tim Keller describes, The Bible defines sin as trying to be your own savior and lord. The Bible defines sin, in a sense, as cosmic treason. The Bible defines sin as overthrowing your rightful Savior and Lord and saying, “No, I want to do that.” The Bible defines sin as trying to be your own savior and lord, and here’s the point.
In younger brother lostness, you just do it. You’re conscious. You say, “Yes, I’m going to be my own savior and lord. I don’t need God. I don’t need religion. Don’t tell me what’s right and wrong. I will decide what’s right and wrong for me.” So you know you’ve done it. When your life falls apart, you say, “Maybe I need God.”
In elder brother lostness, the goodness masks the fact that you are also being your own savior and lord. Because of your goodness you’re not all that dependent on God. You don’t want total salvation. You just want help at certain points. Because of your goodness you don’t pray to him day and night in dependence on him. You pray when you’re in trouble. Because of your goodness you don’t really make him your Savior and your Lord. You’re your own savior and lord, but the goodness masks it.
Until the Holy Spirit comes in and intervenes, the natural human heart will take goodness and always use it like this. Good deeds, moral rectitude, caring for the needy, helping your family, however you define it, what your heart will do with that goodness is you will use it to take control of God and the people around you.
4. As Tim Keller noted, The Great Divorce is a fictional account by C.S. Lewis of a busload of people from hell who go to the outskirts of heaven. People who are in hell are met generally by people whom they knew from earth who are in heaven. The people from heaven come on down, and they try to urge the people from hell to come to heaven.
Here’s an interesting example. What you’re going to find is the ghost is a person from hell. The bright man is a person from heaven. This is one of these encounters. “ ‘Look at me, now,’ said the Ghost, slapping its chest (but the slap made no noise). ‘I gone straight all my life … I don’t say I had no faults, far from it. But I done my best all my life, see? I done my best by everyone, that’s the sort of chap I was. I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine by rights. If I wanted a drink I paid for it and if I took my wages I done my job, see? That’s the sort I was …”
The bright man said, “It would be much better not to go on about that now. […] You can never do it like that … Your feet will never grow hard enough to walk on our grass that way. You’d be tired out before we got to the mountains.”
Ghost says, “Who’s going on? I’m not arguing. […] I’m asking for nothing but my rights. […] But I got to have my rights same as you, see?”
“Oh no. It’s not as bad as that. I haven’t got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You’ll get something far better.”
“That’s just what I say. I haven’t got my rights. I always done my best and I never done nothing wrong. And what I don’t see is why I should be put below a bloody murderer like you,’ ” which he was.
“Who knows whether you will be? [Maybe you will be put above me up there.] Only be happy and come with me.”
“What do you keep on arguing for?” said the Ghost. “I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.”
“Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.”
“That may do very well for you, I daresay. If they choose to let in a bloody murderer all because he makes a poor mouth at the last minute, that’s their look out. […] I don’t want charity. I’m a decent man and if I had my rights, I’d have been here long ago and you can tell them I said so.”
The Ghost was almost happy now he could in a sense threaten. “ ‘That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go home. I didn’t come here to be treated like a dog. I’ll go home. […] Damn and blast the whole pack of you …’ In the end, still grumbling, but whimpering also a little as it picked its way over the sharp grasses, [the Ghost] made off.” Now this is a perfect picture of the elder brother.
