Okay. Get out of here. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Why? I don't know. Yeah. One. Two. Three. Four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so so so so So, so This is 12. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And I, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Yeah. StSq3 3.30 (-0.99)" the the Good morning. The cruises are home at sick right now, so please be sure to keep them in your prayers. But I do have the pleasure of introducing Chris, who is attending Grace Fellowship right now. He is licensed in the URC. Please be sure to talk with him afterwards. Give him a very warm welcome. There are just a few announcements I would like to bring up, Our monthly hymn sing tonight at 545, please come early so we can gather and sing hymns together. And then an Easter outreach is being planned by the Outreach Committee. It will be an Easter egg hunt on the lawn Saturday, April 16th. For our families and also our neighbors, there will be games, candy, and we will need help setting up and tearing things down. So if you are interested in helping, please talk to myself or Bree. A congregational meeting is called by the session next Sunday. It should be pretty short. We'll just be voting on people to the sacred office of elder and deacon. Brian will be for elder, and then Bryce and Jake Shoemaker for the office of deacon. There are several other announcements. Please be sure to look at the back of your bulletin. Specifically, music camp is coming up, so make sure that you mark your calendar with that. But we are here to do one thing, and that is to worship our great God. So I invite you now to please stand for the call to worship. Well, our great God calls us to worship this morning from his word in Psalm 99 verses 1 through 3. The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim. Let the earth quake. The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he. Lord, open our lips. And our mouth shall declare your praise. Let us pray. Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning and respond to your call to worship. And we ascribe to you the glory and strength that are due to your name as we worship you in the splendor of your holiness. Reveal yourself to us this morning, Father, in the name of your Son. For to him you have delivered all things, and no one knows you except in him. Truly our help is in your name, you who made heaven and earth. For to you, Father, together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God from all eternity and to all eternity, be glory, wisdom, power, and dominion both now and forevermore. Amen. Well, people of God, our God greets us this morning from his word in Romans 1, saying, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, of what He heav'nly knows. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. amen well our hymn of praise this morning is number 380 crown hymn with many crowns 380 ♪ The Lamb upon His throne ♪ ♪ Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own ♪ ♪ Awake my soul and sing of Him who died for thee ♪ ♪ And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity ♪ Come, hymn the Lord alive! Triumph and o'er the grave! Who rose victorious from the strife for those he came to save? His glory shall we sing! Who died and reigns alive! He died, eternal life, to bring an earth that hath divine. Crying, the Lord of love, behold his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above, in beauty glorified, no angel in the sky. ♪ Can fully bear its sight ♪ ♪ But downward bends it early on ♪ ♪ That mystery so bright ♪ ♪ Crown Him the Lord of peace ♪ ♪ Whose power a scepter sways ♪ ♪ From pole to pole that wars may cease ♪ ♪ Absorbed in prayer and praise ♪ His reign shall know no end, and round his pierced feet, fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet. Crown Him the Lord of years, the potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres, in effably sublime. All hail, Redeemer, hail, for Thou hast died for me. Thy praise shall never, never fail throughout eternity. Amen. Well, you may be seated. We now have the opportunity to hear God's law, his will for our lives tonight, or this morning, rather. We hear God's law from the book of Colossians chapter 3, verses 5 through 17. Colossians 3, 5 through 17. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Well, having heard God's law, his will for our lives, we immediately recognize, of course, that even this week we have failed to keep it. We have failed to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We have failed to love our neighbor even as we love ourselves. So we have an opportunity now to go before our Lord and confess silently first our personal sins and then confess together our corporate sins. Let's pray. Let us confess our sins together, saying, Our Father, we praise you for our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself as the sacrifice for our sins, and in whose name we may come boldly to your throne of grace. We confess we come to you far less often than we sin. We allow our sins to pile up and we get used to them. We become comfortable and lazy in our faith. Oh God, we underestimate sin's power and overestimate our own ability. We pray your Holy Spirit would remove every sinful desire from us, that we might be increasingly separated from sin. Humble us and give us grace to depend on you every moment of every day. Amen. Well, our assurance of pardon this morning comes from the book of Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 through 10. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. What a wonderful, glorious word of grace that we can have only from our great God and Savior, knowing that He has forgiven our sins, those of us who have come to Him in faith and repentance, and that now we can truly begin to obey this law, not out of fear, not to earn a place before Him, but because we have received glorious, unspeakable grace and we can respond in gratitude. Well, let's begin to respond to what we've heard already this morning, singing our hymn of Thanksgiving, which can be found as an insert in your bulletin, All I Have is Christ. Please stand to sing All I Have is Christ. I once was lost in darkest night Yet thought I knew the way That Savior's love, joy, and light Had led me to the great I had no hope that you would hold another man to your will. And if you have not loved me first, I would refuse you still. I am free in your grace, and different to the cross. And I beheld God's lawless way, who suffered in my place. You bore the wrath reserved for me, now all I know is grace. Alleluia, all I have is Christ. Alleluia, Jesus is my life. Thou, my Lord, and yours alone, and live so all might see, the strength to follow your ways will never come from me. Others, I ransom life in any way you choose, and let my song forever be, my only ghost is you. Alleluia, all I have is Christ. Alleluia, Jesus is my life. Amen, and please be seated. Well, having heard that God calls us into his presence to worship him, having heard his greeting, heard his law, confessed our sins, and heard his assurance of pardon, we have confidence now to go before the throne of grace, to know that we can come to him through Christ, that because of what Christ has done for us, the veil in the temple has been torn from top to bottom. So let's go before our God and pray this morning. Our Father in heaven, your word is upright, and all of your work is done in faithfulness. You love righteousness and justice. The earth is full of your steadfast love. You spoke, and it came to be. You commanded, and it stood firm. You bring the councils of the nations to nothing, and you frustrate the plans of the peoples. Truly, we can taste and see that you are good. And blessed are all those who take refuge in you. For from you and through you and to you are all things. To you be glory forever and ever. You, O Lord, are the Holy One. And Father, we know well and confess to you that we have broken your holy law and sinned against you in many different ways. We can say alongside the psalmist that we know our transgressions and our sins are ever before us. Yet we have heard already this morning your declaration of pardon, your assurance of forgiveness. We know that we who are in Christ are truly forgiven, and we stand in your sight as if we had obeyed your law as Christ himself obeyed it. We thank you, Lord, that although we have sinned and truly fallen short of your glory, yet we are justified by your grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You are just and the justifier, the one who has faith in Jesus. And we praise and thank you for this grace and mercy, which is ours and gives us confidence to come to you in prayer through the mediation of Christ, even as we're doing this very moment. And so now we ask that you would be with this congregation. Be with those who are suffering from both physical and emotional issues. We think particularly this morning of Kelly, who has pain and discomfort, perhaps from a pinched nerve. We think of Barb as she recovers from lung surgery. We thank you for overseeing Zachariah safely through his recent ear surgery. And we ask that you would give him a smooth recovery, and that you would make the implants successful when they are activated soon. We pray for Melissa's dad, David, who is recovering from chemo. We ask that your joy would be his strength. We ask your favor, Lord, for Carrie Ann's father, Bryce, with his upcoming surgery on April 25th. We also pray for Jan's father, who has been diagnosed with lymphoma. Would you keep him in peace and comfort until you call him home? Lord, we ask for all these individuals and also those that we haven't named. We pray that they will be strengthened and comforted and reminded of your promises to them, even in the midst of this life, which can often be so filled with tears. We ask the same for those among us suffering from mental health issues. May your healing hand be upon them if it is your will. Please be with all these people, with their doctors and their families, as they try to navigate this path in life that can often seem dark and confusing. Strengthen them, we pray, with the hope and comfort of the gospel, even in the midst of this current hardship. And Lord, we thank you for the blessings of these covenant children in this congregation. We ask that you would be with all the parents here as they seek to raise the children that you have given them in your nurture and admonition. We ask you to be with the pregnant mothers in this congregation, with Bethany, Melissa, Hannah, and Heather. We ask that you would be with those who are traveling from us and those who are sick. We ask that you would bring them back to us again, that you would heal them, that you would give them traveling mercies, and that they would be able to worship with us again soon. We ask, Lord, that as your scriptures are faithfully preached here, that sinners will be converted, and that your people would continue to be sanctified by your spirit and made disciples. We ask that as I proclaim your word today, that you would give me clarity of word and mind, and that you would be with all of us as we actively listen to your word. May your spirit convict, encourage, and assure us this morning, and apply this word to us, we pray. Be with the officers of this church, with Pastor Cruz, with the elders and the deacons as they seek to be faithful in their tasks. Be with them as they seek to juggle their various vocations in life, and we ask that you would keep them strengthened and encouraged in their work. May you direct Pastor Cruz in his sermon preparations in the weeks ahead, and would you continually glorify yourself before this congregation through your word of truth. We ask that you would be with the elders and deacons and provide for all their needs, physical and spiritual, as they labor to serve their people and their Lord. And we ask, Lord, that you would also be with this church as witness to the community. May you give this congregation the courage of Daniel to live faithfully day by day, fearing you and not man. We ask you to provide a building more suitable for the needs of this congregation and give the congregation and building committee wisdom throughout this endeavor. We pray for your blessing on the regular ministries of this church as well. May the body grow in love for one another and for you through time spent together in worship, Sunday school, in different studies, in the family nights, in the service and fellowship opportunities as they come up. We ask that your Holy Spirit would give us all ways to love one another and make our hearts and hands willing and able. And we come to you, Lord, and ask all this in the name of our only mediator, Jesus Christ, even as we pray the words he taught us to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. Well, we have an opportunity now to continue to respond to our Lord with the grace he has shown us, with the giving of our tithes and offerings. So I would invite the deacons forward to take up the offering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for both the gift and the giver. We ask, Lord, that you would give this church wisdom as they make decisions about what to do with these funds, that they would be used for the good of your people and the furthering of your kingdom. We pray all these things in Jesus' name, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. Well, please stand as we sing our psalm of preparation, 51C, God be merciful to me, verses one through six. 51C, verses one through six. ♪ Be merciful to me ♪ ♪ Thou my grace, my rest, my plea ♪ ♪ Tempt us in compassion now ♪ ♪ Thou art my transgressions now ♪ ♪ Wash me, make me pure within ♪ ♪ Cleanse, oh cleanse me from my sin ♪ My transgressions I confess, Grief and guilt I so oppress. I have sinned against Thy grace, And troubled Me to Thy face. I confess Thy judgment just, Speechless I Thy mercy trust. I am evil born in sin, thou desirest truth within. Left alone, my Savior art, teach thy wisdom to my heart. Make me pure Thy grace bestow, Wash me whiter than the snow. Broken, humbled to the dust, By Thy wrath and judgment just, Let my contrite heart rejoice, and in gladness hear Thy voice. From my sins, O hide Thy face, block them out in boundless grace. Gracious God, my heart renew, Make my spirit right and true. Cast me not away from Thee. Let Thy spirit dwell in me. Thy salvation's joy impart. Steadfast make my willing heart. Pinners, then, shall learn from thee, and return, O God, to thee. Savior, all my guilt remove, and my tongue shall sing thy love. Touch my silent lips, O Lord, and thy mouth shall praise the Lord. Amen. Well, let us pray and ask for God's help once again this morning. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word to us, and specifically for Luke 15. We pray that your spirit would illumine us to understand your scriptures this morning, and we know that all of your word, in both the Old and New Testaments, points us to Christ. So we ask that we would see him more clearly in this text. For it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Well, there's a slight difference from the bulletin. We will not be in Acts chapter 9. Instead, we'll be in Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15, a familiar passage, I trust. Luke chapter 15 will be starting in verses 11, starting in verse 11, going to the end of the chapter all the way to verse 32. Luke chapter 15 and starting in verse 11. And he, being Jesus, said, There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country. And there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and treated him, but he answered his father, look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when the son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him. And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad. For this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. This ends the reading of God's holy word. May he bless it to us this morning. Well, it's a good thing for us to be reminded of how shocking grace truly is. I mean, certainly we come to this building and we gather together as a congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and week in and week out, we hear the glorious message of the gospel, even in the liturgy, even in the service itself. Before we come to the sermon, we read the law of God, we understand that we have failed to keep it, we confess our sins, and we hear his gospel's assurance of pardon and forgiveness to us. We hear the gospel preached from the Old and New Testaments week in and week out. But we must admit that part of our sinful condition, even though we are perhaps regenerated, even though we are in Christ, we are still sinful. And part of that sinful condition is forgetting what grace truly is. Forgetting how shocking it is that God would do certain things for us as sinners. We see this parable here as a good example, perhaps one of the most well-known passages in all the New Testaments. and a very good example of grace. But perhaps this text, the parable of the prodigal son, needs to be rescued from its familiarity. It needs to be rescued from how often we read it and think, well, of course that's what happened, I've read that story a million times. We see that this is a parable, and a parable in the gospel, in one of the gospels, is meant to show us something about the kingdom of God. Jesus came to bring the kingdom of God to the kingdom of heaven, if you're reading in Matthew. And the parables show particular aspects of what that kingdom would be. So when we read parables, we should ask, what is this telling me about the kingdom of God? What's the main idea here? When we come to the parable of the prodigal son, the main idea is the graciousness, the gracious character of this kingdom. It's the third parable in chapter 15. If we were to read the entire chapter, we'd see one parable after another after another. And all of them are really saying the same thing, making the same points. It's helping us to see what God's reaction is to finding someone who was lost but then is found. So if we were to turn to the beginning of chapter 15, we'd see first the parable of the lost sheep, then the parable of the lost coin, and finally the parable, we could say, of the lost son. And if we turn to chapter 15, verse 10, we read these words, just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. What Jesus is telling us through these parables is the rejoicing that happens in heaven over the rescue of one sinner. The context is, of course, important in understanding parables, just like any other part of God's Word. And it seems that there's a very specific reason why Jesus was telling these parables. You see, he was known for eating with tax collectors and sinners, and that's what he's doing here. And the Pharisees are coming along and saying, how dare he eat with these people? Doesn't he know who they are? Doesn't he know how wicked and sinful they are? How hopeless they are? How far away from God's grace they truly are? Well, Jesus responds with three stories to explain why it is that he's eating with tax collectors and sinners. And so as we look at this parable today, we'll see three things in particular. Basically, we'll look at the three characters as we find them in this story. First, we'll see the prodigal son. Second, we'll see the father. And finally, we'll see the elder brother. The prodigal son, the father, and the elder brother. So we start with the prodigal son. Now, perhaps you've heard of this study. It's getting somewhat dated now. almost 30 years old, but I don't think things have changed too much. There was a secular researcher who spent some time in conservative churches and liberal churches thinking about how they preached the parable of the prodigal son. And she noticed some differences in what happened. She noticed that in the conservative churches, the problem was seen as the younger brother, and they sympathized with the older brother, who they saw as themselves. And so the problem was out there with the prodigals. And in the liberal churches, they identified more with the prodigal, and they saw a problem with the elder brother, who was, of course, those out there. And so no matter which way you interpret it in those two options, the problem always ends up being those people out there, and we're the ones who really have it together. And if we spent much time in different kinds of churches, perhaps in different traditions, perhaps we'd see that that isn't too far from what is often preached in this parable today. But is that really how we should understand this parable of the prodigal son? Is that what Jesus is telling us this story about to get this point across to us? And the answer is no. And the point of the prodigal son is never that the problem is out there. And we see that as we look at the younger brother himself. We see he makes a demand, first of all. We see he begins with a life at home. Jesus begins telling this parable about this younger brother who lives at home and he hates it. He wants out. He wants far away from the life he's known, from the people who love him, from his father, from his brother, from everything else. He wants freedom. And not just freedom for freedom's sake, he wants freedom to go and sin in the way that seems right to him. We read at the end of the book of Judges that in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and that's really what the prodigal is after here. He wants to have no king, no ruler, no authority. He wants to do what is right in his own eyes. We don't know much about the father. He seems like just a typical first century Jewish man. We aren't given much detail other than it seems that he had some wealth in his name. So the younger son goes to his father, and what he does is considered rude in any society, but in a first century Jewish context, it's almost unthinkable. He goes to his father and asks for his inheritance. Basically what he does is he goes to his father and tells him he wishes that he were dead. This father has given him all these things, this home, the food on his table, the clothes on his back, his love, his support. The prodigal son comes to him and says, Dad, I just want you for your money. Why don't you give it to me so I never have to see you again? Essentially, his father was dead to him. He does a very, very hateful thing. That's the first shocking thing in this parable, because good Jewish boys didn't do this. And if they did, there were very severe consequences. But the second shocking thing hits us almost immediately. The father does it. The father hears what his son says, and he goes and executes his entire will. So two-thirds go to the elder brother with the birthright, and then the remaining third go to this younger son, to this prodigal as he's come to be known. And then we see and we read that the prodigal goes to a far off place. In verse 13, not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country. And there he squandered his property and reckless living. Now that phrase, far country, might strike us a little bit. And when we just read over it, we think, okay, he went far away. In our minds, far country is somewhere on the other side of the world. Somewhere at least thousands of miles away. When I moved from Nebraska to California to begin seminary, I thought in a way that I was going to a far off country, a far place. And that's true as far as we consider it, but to Jewish ears in the first century who are hearing this parable for the first time, there's something else that clicks in their minds. Something else that comes to their thoughts as they hear this term of far country. What Jesus is saying here is that this young man went to Gentile lands. This young man left the borders of the promised land that God had given to his forefathers thousands of years before, had promised to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, had given to them under Joshua and the judges and especially King David. What Jesus is saying in not so many words is that this young man, this younger brother, becomes an apostate. He turns his back not only on his father and his family and his people and his land, but he turns his back on his God. He runs away from the place where God had given to him. He runs away from his inheritance in the land. He runs away from the temple where God has promised to dwell in the midst of his people in Jerusalem. He wants nothing to do with them. We see he has a wild lifestyle. And it's almost not explicitly told us in the text. It's as if Jesus wants us to think, how did he waste his money in a Gentile land? And the implied answer is that we don't want to know. Which is another way of saying that we do kind of know what he was doing. Perhaps the older brother had some of the right ideas when he came to his father later, as we'll see in a few minutes. Basically, he sins. And in so sinning, he squanders everything his father has given to him. This generational wealth that's been passed down and earned from generation after generation after generation comes to him and he blows it in just a little while. He not only hates his father enough to say that, I wish you were dead, give me the money now. He not only apostatizes, but then he goes to this far off this Gentile place and he squanders his father's money in a way that dishonors his father's name. You see, first century families were perhaps a little bit different than what we would expect today. And the father was essentially the ruler, and that happened for generations. The eldest man in the family was essentially the one who led the family. And so much of that society had to do with honor and shame. You do things to honor the family name, not to bring shame to the family name. And what did the younger son do? He did everything he possibly could, it seems, to bring shame to the name of his father, to the name of his family. And he's finally left there in this far off place, far cut off from all that he's ever known, everyone he's ever come into contact with. He's penniless and providentially, famine hits. And we know what happens in famines if the price of food skyrockets. It does what the price of gasoline has been doing for the last several weeks. It goes up and up and up. Which would be bad enough on its own, but he's flat broke now. He's essentially homeless, penniless, and living in a society where food is becoming more and more expensive every day. So what can he do? He really has two options. He can starve to death, the option he does not pick. Instead, he goes with door B. He sells himself into slavery to someone in that land, to a well-off person, and goes to work feeding pigs. These are his real problems. These things are happening quickly to him in quick succession here. And we can ask, well, why is it significant that he's feeding pigs? Is it because pigs smell? Is it because pigs are dirty? Is it because that's a low form of labor just to go out and to feed the pigs each and every day? Perhaps that's maybe what we would think of if we were slaves and our job was to feed pigs, that we were fairly lowly. We aren't even able to be free. It's one thing to be a pig farmer. It's another thing to be a slave feeding pigs. Is that what it's supposed to get across to us? Perhaps. But once again, there's another meaning that would have come across to first century Jewish ears. What were pigs to them? Unclean animals. to be associated with pigs, to be in the presence of pigs each and every day meant that you yourself were ceremonially unclean, that you had no right to approach the tabernacle and later the temple until you had cleansed yourself through various series of washings and rituals. And not only is he surrounded by these unclean pigs, but he's envying them because they have it better than he does. Their food is better than his food. Basically, what Jesus is describing here in short order, in just a few sentences, really, is absolute rock bottom for a first century Jewish person. He's alienated, he's unclean, and he's desperate. He's describing, really, the tax collectors and sinners with whom he's eating. These are the ones with whom I am sharing this meal. And really, if we look at all of scripture, And if we're honest with ourselves, we recognize that this describes each and every sinner. That in a lot of ways, the story of the prodigal is the story of all of us. We think perhaps of Paul's words in Ephesians 2, 11 through 12. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." It's difficult to think of a better description of the prodigal there as he's sitting in the pig pen, envying what the pigs are eating. He had made himself into a Gentile. He had cut himself off from the covenant of promise. He had alienated himself from Christ from the people of Israel. He had done everything he could do to run away, to turn his back, to make sure that he had nothing to do with these things. And he reminds us of ourselves. Now, without the grace of Christ, we are in the exact same position. cut off without hope and without God in this world. You understand? What he did in their minds was absolutely awful. It was the kind of story that you don't hear very often, if at all. And what he did when he was there and sold himself into slavery was he had basically undone, he had reversed the exodus for himself. The exodus was how the ancient Jewish people understood redemption. And what did God do in the exodus? He went to these people in a far country, in a far off place, in a Gentile land. He rescued them from slavery and brought them into his land. He gave them possessions. He gave them an inheritance. And what had the prodigal son done? He had left his land. He had left the land of God. He had squandered his possessions and his inheritance. and he had sold himself into slavery to a Gentile. And you can almost hear the Pharisees at this point, can't you? Yes. Get him, Jesus. This is exactly what he deserves, and that's true. This is exactly what the prodigal deserves, but we see that that's not how the prodigal's story ends. Jesus keeps talking. He's not done yet. He's still giving this parable, one of the longest parables that we read about in the New Testament. He's still showing the people who are listening to him, whether Pharisees or tax collectors and sinners, what it is that he's getting across to them. We see that the son begins to repent. At some point, we aren't given a lot of details, but at some point as he's wallowing in the mud and filth, envying these unclean pigs, he begins to come to his senses. He sorrows over and repents of his sins, the sins he's committed against his father and against God. He begins to realize that he had it much better at home and what he's done to his loving father, how he's turned his back on his Lord and God. But we see in verse 17 that although he repents, he still does not understand what grace really is. Look with me again at verse 17. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. Basically what he's asking, what he's doing is asking, is there a way back to my father? Well, if there is, I have to work for it. And if there's a way back into my father's good graces, it has to be with the strength of my back and the sweat of my brow. Really begin to understand that perhaps because we ourselves tend to think that way when it comes to God. That we're, as one of my professors said, we're wired for law. We have this sense in our head ever since Adam was created in the garden and given the covenant of works that if we're going to be right with God, we ourselves have to work for it. Will God receive us? Well, only if we do such and such. Only if we do a certain number of things. Only if we check all the boxes, cross all the T's and dot all the I's. And that's what the son is thinking. And so he heads back to his father, and that brings us to our second character this morning, the father. And there's an expectation that's been set up around the father of what he's going to do, how he's going to respond to his son who's coming back to him. Really, the son deserved to be thrown right off the property as soon as he came back. That's what we expect to happen. That's what the Pharisees would have expected to happen. That's what the tax collectors and sinners eating with Christ expected to happen. That's what the disciples who heard this expected to happen. It seems like the son himself expected this to happen. That's why he has this pre-programmed speech that he's probably been practicing the entire way as he's running back to his father. If he was going to come back, he was going to have to convince his father into letting him work for it because he knew what happened to sons who did things like what he did. In Deuteronomy 21, verses 18 through 21, we read, if a man has a stubborn and a rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him, he will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives. And they shall say to the elders of his city, this, our son, is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear." That's what God's law said was to be done to rebellious sons like this prodigal. And of course, at that time and place, the Romans wouldn't allow the Jewish people to go about carrying out their own justice. The Jewish people weren't allowed to go around executing people for breaking the law. But what would have happened, it seems, as we look at other sources from that time and place, is there would have been a figural death of the son, a symbolic death of the son, that they would have still taken a hold of him, brought him to the gates of the city, told all of his crimes to the elders, and then he would have been sent off, never to be seen again. Basically that what they would do to the son who did these things is what the son did to his father at the beginning, you're dead to me and I never want to see you again. You're disinherited, you no longer have our name, you no longer have our property, you no longer have even our love and our affection. And that's what's expected to happen, but the reality is different than the expectation. Verse 20, as we read about it, is the most shocking part of this shocking story, of this shocking parable. Look with me again at verse 20. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. That's not a dignified thing for a father to do. Boys and girls, imagine with me that you're in a hot, dusty climate, that you're in the desert and there are rocks and sand and all kinds of other things all around you, that you're wearing sandals and you're wearing a long, flowing robe. How easy is it going to be to run? Not very easy, is it? You're going to get caught up in your robe, you're going to trip and fall, you're going to bust up probably your elbows and perhaps other parts of you. So what you have to do is you have to take your robe and hike it up, gather it up together around you, above your knees so that you can run. Now imagine a middle-aged man doing this, who probably hasn't ran in a decade or longer. It's not exactly dignified. It's not exactly a pretty picture. But it is a picture of love and affection. This is how the father responds to his son. It makes us remember, perhaps, Isaiah chapter 65, verse 24, when God is talking about when Israel calls out to him in distress. And he says, before they call, I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear. That's what happens here. The son is forgiven before he can even begin to try to work for it. Look with me at verse 21. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. So the son launches into this prerecorded speech. If I'm going to come back, I need to work for it. I need to convince my father basically to take me on as a slave. But you'll notice that he doesn't get all the way through it. Jesus has already told us what the entire speech consists of. There's more to it than this. Basically, he's interrupted. The father doesn't even give him the chance to propose this kind of arrangement. He's interrupted by the grace he receives. The father provides the robe, the ring, and the shoes. The son had nothing to offer. He had nothing to give to his father, nothing that he could give that the father needed or even wanted. And beyond even this, we see that the ring is given to him as a symbol of an inheritance. It's a symbol of being part of the family. The son is here again. And then he sends for the fattened calf to be killed and prepared for a feast. The fattened calf is a calf that has been selected basically from birth as the best of the best. and it's treated well and it's fed extra and it's watered extra, it's given the best place to eat and to live and to sleep because it's being prepared for the best possible guest to come, someone to honor. You kill a fattened calf for a king who comes to visit you. So what we have here is the father giving the best possible meal to the worst possible son. But then we see the third character, finally and briefly, the elder brother. We read that he hears this story as he comes in from a long, hot, hard day in the fields, and he's upset. He refuses to come into the feast. We see that the father is also concerned about him. in verse 28, but he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated with him. But he answered his father, look, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him. What he's saying here, what the elder brother is in effect saying is, Father, do you know what he did to your name, to the name of this family? Do you know what he did with the gifts that you graciously gave to him, even though you were not obligated to give them to him? Either you don't know, or you don't remember, or you don't care. He's not only refusing his father's invitation, he's accusing him of being unjust Basically, what he's doing is he is saying, I'm the one who deserves these things. I'm the one who deserves your favor. I'm the one who has earned it through my obedience. Notice, though, the irony of it. He's telling his father he's never disobeyed his command as he's in the process of disobeying his command to come into the feast. He has himself convinced in his mind that he is perfectly obedient, that he is the only one who's ever completely obeyed. But we see the father's answer. And he said to him in verse 31, son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. And that word translated in our English translations often as fitting at the end of the story is a very important word in Luke's gospel. It's used again and again and again in very important places in the gospel of Luke when Christ talks about how fitting it was for him to come and die for sinners. It seems that Jesus is making a connection here between what happened to the prodigal, the younger son, and why he came to earth in the first place. We see here as we wrap up this parable that both sons were alienated from their father, but only one came to realize his need. And the Pharisees here are in the position of elder brother. We think in Matthew 23 verse 13, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. That sounds like the elder brother in this parable, doesn't it? He's not going into the feast, he's not going into the house, and that one shouldn't be in there either. That's what he comes to his father and says. So there are two lost sons here in the parable. The younger son, the prodigal as we know him, was lost in his sin, in his disobedience, and then in the idea that he needs to work to make up for it. And the older brother was lost in his law-keeping. He was proud of his obedience to his father's commands. He was self-righteous and self-assured. And each in their own way both made the father's love conditional on their obedience. The son saying, if I'm going to get this from my father, I have to work for it. The younger son, because I've disobeyed too much. The older son says, I've obeyed all these years, therefore I have a right to this love. But that's not what grace is. And that's not how God accepts us in Christ. And no matter if you're here this morning and you have this sense that you have disobeyed so strongly for so many years that you have to work yourself back to God, remember this parable. And if you're here this morning and you think, I've done pretty well. Perhaps I was brought up and raised in a Christian church. Maybe even a Reformed or Presbyterian church that I've done pretty well. I've never done anything too terrible. I've never been arrested. I've never done drugs. I've never done this or that or the other thing. So I must be pretty good. God must owe me something. This parable has something to say to all of us. Only through God's gracious invitation are we accepted. This party is for one who is dead and is now alive. And oh, by the way, that's all of us. The only ones in this party, other than Jesus himself, are the ones who were formerly spiritually dead. The elder claimed he had always obeyed, yet he had just disobeyed his father's invitation to come. And for the Pharisees to come to the feast, they first had to realize that they themselves needed the invitation. And so God calls us to repent, to come home with faith, and to enter into the feast, for we are his sons. He is calling to us. And we can know that our elder brother is not outside accusing us, saying that we should be thrown out. But our true elder brother is inside preparing the feast for us. Preparing the marriage supper of the Lamb. And each and every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we have a foretaste of this blessed communion. And as we see our brothers and sisters around us taking the elements of bread and wine, of eating together, of hearing the words, the gracious words of institution that God has given to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, then we know that sinners are then feasting with the gracious God. And the self-righteous and the open sinner, both need grace. This is why Jesus came. This is what the kingdom looks like. So if you are trusting in Christ this morning, know that this is why you are in him, because he was gracious to you while you were yet a sinner. And if you're here this morning and you're not trusting in Christ, you're thinking either I'm too far gone or I don't really need him because I'm good enough on my own. Remember that without Christ that you are dead. You are cut off. You are without hope in this world. You are without God in this world. And so flee to Christ because this is what you will find, grace and mercy and love. It's all of grace and our works are not taken into account. This is the nature of the kingdom of God that Christ brought. This is the character of our God. And so we can come to God through Christ without works and without fear of rejection. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this parable of the prodigal son that is so familiar in many ways to us, but is also shocking in its grace and its mercy. We ask that your spirit would help us to remember these things as we leave this place this afternoon and disperse back into the community, into our different homes and our gatherings. We know that it's only in Christ's name that we have confidence to freely come to you, not because of anything we've done, but only because we come to you in his name. And so we pray in that precious and holy name of our great high priest, our only mediator. Amen. Well, our hymn of response this morning is number 450, Jesus, lover of my soul, please stand to sing 450. StSq3 3.30 (-0.99)" Jesus, lover of my soul, lead me to thy bosom tight, while the mirror waters roll, while the temple still is high, that I may know thy Savior high. Till the storm of life is passed, Safe into the hidden guide, Oh, receive my soul at last! O refuge have I none, Kings, my helpless soul, on thee. Leave all, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me. All who trust on Thee is gained, All my help from Thee I bring, Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing. O Christ, our Doll I want, More than all in Thy find, Thou fallen, cheer the faint, Heal the sick, aid the young, Just and holy is Thy Name. I am all unrighteousness, False and full of sin I am, Thou art full of truth and grace, Plenteous grace with Thee is found, grace to cover all my sin. Let the healing streams abound, make and keep me pure within. Thou of life, the fountain of Freely let me take of Thee. Spring Thou up within my heart. Rise to all eternity. Amen. Well, let me pray a prayer of blessing for us as we leave this place. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, may you bless us and keep us. May your face shine upon us and be gracious to us. May you lift up your countenance upon us and give us peace. We pray this in Christ's holy name by the power of the Holy Spirit. 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