Everyone’s Welcome, Nobody’s Perfect, Anything’s Possible #2
Nobody’s Perfect
Dr. Marty Baker / Luke 15 / February 13, 2022
Good morning. Welcome you to Stevens Creek Church. I am so glad that you are here. I want to welcome those in our South Campus, our Dream Center Experience and in our new West Campus. Let’s give a special welcome to our church family in Grovetown.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday. The excitement for tonight’s game has been building throughout the week. I think that it is funny how people support their team. They paint their faces; they wear the jerseys and do all kinds of crazy things to show their loyalty to their team.
There’s something about football that captivates our attention. It creates community. It fosters fun. It’s filled with drama. Nothing is more dramatic that a close, down-to-the-wire championship game. This season has been the best one ever.
When you look at each team’s record, however, it’s interesting to me that the Rams lost 5 games this season and the Bengals lost 7 games. You don’t hear too much about that. Needless to say, neither team has been perfect, yet they are in the Super Bowl. It tells me that you can be a champion without being perfect.
When you think about it, none of us are perfect and that’s what I want to talk about today. We are continuing our series: Everyone’s Welcome, Nobody’s Perfect, Anything’s Possible.
We make mistakes. All of us have areas that we struggle in. We do things that we know we shouldn't. We lose our temper, do not keep our word, and at times compromise our convictions. It's easy to be defined by one mistake in life, by one moment, by divorce, by a business that didn't make it, by how we raised our children.
Here’s the big idea for today’s message:
One mistake does not define you. God is bigger than your mistakes.
Over the next few minutes, I am going to talk about a young man that made one colossal mistake that led him down a path that he never dreamed that he would be one. In Luke 15, we see the famous story of the prodigal son.
In this parable, the young man asked his father for his inheritance. Then, he moved away and spent all of his money partying, living wild, hanging out with the wrong people. He lost all of his money. What should have lasted years only lasted a matter of months.
Then, there was a great famine in the land. He had no money, no place to live, and nobody to blame.
The only job he could find was feeding hogs. Things got so bad that he had to eat hog food to survive. It was at this point that he made a decision to go home. That’s the backdrop. Now, let’s look at the details and see what we can learn.
Luke 15:11-12
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.
When Jesus said these words, “Give me my share of the estate,” everyone leaned in and listened. In the Jewish culture of that day, a request such as that was tantamount to saying, "Father, I wish that you were dead." The sheer magnitude of a request like this would crush a Father's heart.
The younger son wanted the benefits of his Dad’s money, but did not want a relationship with his Father. The younger son wanted freedom ... the opportunity to do what he wanted to do.
This young man was thinking, "Oh, if I could just go where I want to go and do what I want to do then I would be happy. If I could get out of this place and not have any responsibility, then everything would be right.
When the Dad heard his son talk like this, he knew that even though he was geographically in the house, the son had already wandered away.
I believe that the father probably tried to reason with him, but the boy was determined to have his way.
So, at last, the father gives the younger son his share of the property. To do this, I would imagine that the father had to liquidate some of his assets. They did not have their money stored in banks, but in animals and property.
When you have to liquidate something quickly you typically don’t get market value. So, this father was willing to take a loss in order to satisfy his younger son.
Here’s how it turned out. The younger son received one-third of the family’s estate. The elder son received two-thirds and was responsible for the family’s well-being.
The story goes on to say that younger son set off for a distant land and squandered his wealth in wild living. He had the time of his life…parties day and night, women on both arms, the good life, the fast lane. Whatever he wanted, he bought with his father’s money.
Eventually his money ran out. Then, a recession hit… and he found himself unemployed.
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.
So we see this young boy ended up broke, homeless, starving and had to take a job feeding the pigs which for a Jewish boy was unthinkable.
This young man was miserable, but it was in his misery that he came to his senses.
Have you ever noticed how most of us want to get close to God when things are not going well?
Here’s what I have learned: My struggles open my heart to the Lord. Pain that drives me to my knees. That’s what happened to John Spears. Listen to his story.
Video Testimony: John Spears
John made a decision to give his life to God and that decision made all of the difference.
I believe that every one of us can get closer to God by doing these three things.
Let’s make it personal. Here’s the first one.
1. I must get so frustrated with my life that I am willing to change.
I call this getting fed up. You come to the place where you say, “I’m fed up with my life. I am fed up with my circumstances. I am so frustrated with the way I’ve been living that I am not going to live this way anymore.”
Here’s the point: Nothing is going to happen in your life until first you get dissatisfied with the way you are. In this story, the son had wasted it all. He was desperate and finally came to his senses.
Luke 15:17-19
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants 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 servants.’
Have you ever had an important conversation with someone and you start rehearsing it out loud in advance?
You do this because you want to say the right words. There have been times that when I rehearsed it and there have been some times that I have written it down. This boy starts rehearsing the "I am sorry speech" for his Dad. At this point, you wonder, “Why did he wait so long to go home?”
John Ortberg explains it this way. When a Jewish boy squandered his inheritance among the Gentiles, if he dared to try to return home, the entire community would gather upon his return. As a symbol of how destructive he had been, how he had broken his relationship with that community, broken his family, broken his father, the entire community would gather together.
When that boy tried to come home, they would take a clay pot as a symbol of his life. They would break it before him.
This is a way of saying, "This is the brokenness that you have caused in our community. You have broken everything that is good. You have broken trust. You have broken community. Worse, you have broken the heart of your father. Your damage is beyond repair.
So let this be a symbol of your brokenness. Let these be the broken pieces of your broken life. You are not whole. You are not welcome. You are not family. You are cut off. You are dead to us."
In fact, they called this ceremony the kezazah, which is Hebrew for the cutting off. Some here today have felt this kind of brokenness.
Well, the boy knows what's waiting for him if he tries to come home. That's why he stays away. But his pain was too much and he finally said to himself, “I need help. I cannot do this on my own.”
Luke 15:20
20 So he got up and went to his father.
He was broken, so he went home. There are people listening to me today that are broken. Last week, we learned that this is a place where the lost can be found and the broken can be healed.
What’s it going to take for you to come home? Times are tough. Some of you look at your life and you wonder, “How did I end up here?”
You tend to blame the economy. You blame your boss, you blame your parents, or you blame your spouse. Today, stop passing the buck. Take responsibility for your life.
2. I must get honest and own up to my mistakes.
You own up. First, I get fed up and second I own up. I own up to my mistakes. I own up to my sins. That’s what this young man in Jesus’ story did.
When he came to his senses… he admitted his mistakes. Nothing is going to happen until you come to stage two. Stage two is you’ve just got to own up. You have to say, “I need to face the fact that I have not been living God’s way. I’ve been living my way. I’ve been doing it my way.”
So I own up. What do I own up to? I own up to my sin. “When he came to his senses he said, ‘I have sinned.’”
You have to admit that you have sinned.
You must own up to your mistakes, and then the third thing is this:
3. I must surrender and offer my life to God.
Let’s go back to our story:
Luke 15:20
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.
Notice that the father ran. Luke chooses a technical term to describe what the father did. It was normally reserved for athletic contests. Literally the idea would be the father raced. The father sprinted.
Now in the Middle East, the patriarch of a family was a man of great dignity and great authority. He would have been dressed in an elaborate ornate robe. He always walked in a slow, dignified fashion. A man like this would never run.
For this father to run would mean he would have to gather up the edges of his robe so he didn't trip over them if he was really going to run, let alone sprint. That would mean he would be displaying, showing his legs, his naked legs in public. That was not done. That was shameful. That was humiliating. A little boy might do that. A slave on the bottom rung might do that. No father would run.
This father runs. Why? He can't stop thinking about his broken boy. If the village gets to my boy first, he thinks, it will mean kezazah. It will mean brokenness. It will mean shame. It will mean humiliation, and that might do him in. I might lose him forever. I can't let that happen. I have to get to him before anyone else does. I have to be the first one to my boy. That father picks up his robes, and he starts running. This is the most remarkable part of the story for the people listening to Jesus. This father does what no father would do. He takes on the humiliation of his son.
This father runs because that father never stopped loving that boy, no matter how far that boy went from home.
See, this is not the parable of the prodigal son. This is not the parable of the resentful older brother. This is the parable of the father who runs.
Let’s get personal. I believe that if you will take the first step, then God will come running towards you.
When you get honest to say, "God, I need help with this addiction. I need help with this anger, this temper. Or God, I've made a mess of things, I need help in my marriage," God will come running.
When you're humbled enough to say, "God, I've come to the end of myself. I can't break this addiction on my own strength. I can't straighten up my life just by myself.” When you acknowledge you need God's help, he'll make things happen that you could never make happen.
When you take one step toward God, he comes running towards you. This is the only place in the Bible where it pictures God running. God ran after a young man that had gotten off course.
Think about it: God did not run to heal the lepers; He did not run to teach in the Temple, He did not run to meet with the religious leaders, instead he came running to someone that had made mistakes. Nobody’s perfect.
We've all made wrong choices and done things that we knew were not the best. God knew you would mess up. He knew we would get off course, at times give into temptation. He didn't base his plan for your life on you making perfect decisions. God has a plan even for your mistakes.
You are like the Rams and the Bengals … you have lost some games along the way.
God has a plan for our mistakes. He has a plan of forgiveness. His plan is Jesus. Jesus died on the cross to pay for the penalty of our mistakes.
The running father in the gets to his boy, and the boy starts into his speech about he is going to try earning the money back. He will pay in full what he owes the family.
His father just shuts him up, throws his arms around his boy, embraces him, kisses him and says, "Bring out my best robe and my most expensive ring and my finest shoes. Kill the fatted calf. There will be no kezazah.
Brokenness does not get the last word, not for my son. There will be music, and there will be dancing, and there will be feasting.
Luke 15:24
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Maybe you are lost. Could it be that you have been in a foreign country… Spiritually speaking?
You have made mistakes, some bad choices; maybe you have stolen; you've committed crimes; maybe you have been through and ugly divorce; maybe you have slept around so much that you don't even remember who you have been with…here’s what you need to know:
You can come home. If you will take the first step, God will run to you.
None of us are perfect. We have all sinned and fallen short, but God has a plan… a plan to makes things right.
The Father threw his arms around him and kissed him. This was a sign of acceptance. It’s interesting that the Father accepted him even before the son changed.
So many times, we think that we need to do something to make God love us. God loves you just as you are and He just wants you back.
Are you ready to come back home today?
Closing Thoughts and Prayer
