“COMING FACE TO FACE WITH A PIG”
Intro: There are a lot of things that we learn from life itself and many of those are things that we learn through tragedies of our own and we come face to face with learning something the hard way. The problem with the world that we live in, is people are only concerned about what they will get out of it, is whether they are going to go along with it. Many people have an attitude that God owes them some-thing. We tend to get ourselves back against a wall and then we wonder where God is and how come He has done something. Many times God brings us to our lowest point, so that we will look up to him.
Text: Luke 15:11-32 Acts 9:1-9
Illustration: There was a family from a very remote area That visited a very large city for the first time.
They checked into a 4 star Hotel, and they stood Amazed at the beautiful and impressive site’s.
As they left the reception desk the mans wife Stopped at the restroom. Then they stopped and Starred at the elevator, and didn’t have any idea What they were looking at!!! About that time an elderly lady hobbled toward the elevator and went inside. The door closed. About a couple minutes later, the door opened. And out came a stunningly good looking young Woman. Dad couldn’t stop staring, Without turning his head he patted his son on the Arm and said, Son go get your Mother!!
There comes a sobering moment when you look down the road and it tells you something. It tells you it is not what you can get from the Father that is important, but rather it is what the Father can do for you and through you that counts. Sometimes this is a very hard lesson for us to learn.
Everything in life and in the world today looks exciting. What we see the world makes the world more interesting and worth diving into to try all the things that it has for us. It promises you a wealth of experience and most of all the opportunity of doing your own thing. The thought that people hold in their mind of living life without rules & regulations, no boundaries.
Proverbs 16:9 “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”
Just like the prodigal, we find where Saul, whose name is changed to Paul, finds himself going down the same road of bright lights, picture of success and enjoyable. Till all of sudden you find yourself on the ground looking up into the face of a pig. All around you there appeared to be success but instead you find yourself in the mist of total failure with no one to help you.
- - - - - Acts 22:3-5 - - - - -
One thing you’ll never hear your Heavenly Father say is “If you walk away from Me; you can never come back.” Instead, God is a loving Heavenly Father. He loves you so much, you are free to walk out of fellowship with Him, He won’t stop you. He will run to meet you more than halfway if you decide to return to Him. And when you repent; He will treat you as if you never left. Please understand He never wanted you to leave in first place.
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
When you wake up looking face to face with the pigs, you realize that it was not all you thought it was cut out to be. Even the people that you thought were your friends seem to have nothing to do with you anymore.
The reason for looking face to face with the Pigs:
I. The attitude of “Give me”
A. Today we see the attitude of the Prodigal and Saul and many people in the world that we are living in. IT is in our sinful state that it is all about “ME” and nothing else. Even when people in the church fall into sin, it is only about me, me, me.
They tend to lose their sense of accountability. Only concern-
ed about giving not earning. We don’t get rights, we earn em.
Luke 15:12 “And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, GIVE ME the portion of goods that falls on me. So he divided to them his livelihood.”
B. He was born in Tarsus but brought up in this city. He was trained in the law of our fathers under a man named Gamal-iel ! And He had a Zeal for God as much as any of you have today! But he persecuted followers of Christ’s way to their death, arrested them Men and Women, also punished them as well!! He said He was a Jew and He was a believer in God!
- - - - Acts 9:1,2 - - - -
C. This is the spirit of a young child that is yet to learn. Our
children ask and ask, they say “give me this” or “give them that” and it is nothing but a spirit of selfish of a child. They don’t understand and don’t even know any better, be taught.
Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.”
D. We tend to start out with our life looking through the eyes of color and focus. Then, suddenly we find things beginning to look dark and dim and our vision is tainted with a sinful nature of grossness and pure mud. Then we find ourselves looking into the eyes of pigs, wanting to eat what they have.
Luke 15:17 “And WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.”
E. You were born for something better. There’s a better sound than to be wallowing in the filth and muck, of nasty old pigs. There is a better paradise than cocaine or heroin. There isn’t much future in romping and stomping with the pigs.
II. Take the attitude of “make me”
A. The only way to change is to look face to face with a pig and realize there must be a change of attitude. This is what starts the road to recovery is understanding that I had it better back before I tried to do it my own way. There is no salvation without repentance. Some-body has to come to term with themselves saying that I am wrong.
- - - - - - - - Romans 10:9-13 - - - - - - - - - -
B. “Make Me”. Anyone that pray it sincerely one time and things will begin to change and happen. I think one of the greatest problems touching our society today, is that people want to be served more than desiring to be a servant. Saul when changed to Paul, called himself a servant and slave unto Jesus Christ.
Romans 1:1 “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God.”
C. In this Christian walk with the Lord, Christ is able to work with more people that walk Him to “MAKE THEM” instead of “Give Me” attitude. The happiness you will feel in the center of God’s will for your life will beat anything you’ve ever known in riotous and sinful lifestyle.
