Parables: The Parable of the Vineyard Owner – Matthew 20:1-16

• July 22, 2024
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Matthew 20:1-16

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Matthew 20. All of the parables we’ve considered thus far have come to us from Luke’s Gospel, but this one is found in Matthew. In fact, this parable is only found in Matthew’s gospel, and it’s hard for us to accept. I think you’ll see why in a moment.

All of you who have children or grandchildren know that very early children learn the phrase “It’s Not Fair!” They get it. They don’t need to be instructed in it. You don’t have to sit down and show them: “Did you see that? That’s not fair.” You don’t have to do that. They just get it. The portions at the dinner table are too small. Or, if they’re eating vegetables the portions are too big. Later, if they have a curfew, if they have music that they’re not allowed to listen to, if there’s some rule that’s different from their friend’s house, they’ll say, “it’s not fair.” And it’s one of the things that all of us feel; though, as we get older, some of us learn not to say it quite so loudly (more of a mumbling under our breath).

We may feel like our jobs aren’t fair, the pay isn’t fair, our level of taxation isn’t fair, the marriage we’re enduring isn’t fair, or our declining health isn’t fair. Or perhaps you find yourself needing to schedule a service appointment with someone from the telephone company to come out and fix your internet modem because it was hit by lightning, and you’re stuck in the dreaded automated phone directory trying to get your call to an actual living, breathing human that can speak clear English and you think, “This isn’t fair!” Your meal shows up at the table a little less appealing than you’d envisioned and you say, “I cannot believe this. It’s hardly fair.” None of us go through life without thinking about this and saying it often.

Now let me be clear, there are real injustices in the world – don’t want to discount that, don’t want to suggest that we don’t do anything about that, don’t want to say that our laws and judicial systems and standards should not be fair, they should, and there’s a place to lament and cry out against injustice – but what I’m speaking of is an entire way of looking at the world. Some of us, whether we’ve had real experiences of unfairness or not, look at the entire universe through this lens of fairness. And we’re always assessing what we think we deserve. We’re always keenly aware of other people’s successes compared to our supposed failures. We’re always cognizant of whether we’re being recognized or ignored. We see the whole world and experience all of life through these lenses of fairness. That’s how we look at life.

As many of you have noted, recently I’ve had to start wearing glasses to read. Now, I know there’s nothing peculiar about my situation. It’s just the normal process of aging – something known as presbyopia. But some of you have to wear glasses or contact lenses to see anything. If you get out of bed in the middle of the night, you have to put on your glasses or you can’t see where you’re going. When you get up in the morning, you reach over to the nightstand and pick up your glasses because you can’t see without them.

All of us put on some type of lenses whereby we look at the world. None of us simply experience the world, we interpret it. So, you’re not just looking at the world around you, you’re interpreting what’s happening to you and for some of us, it’s only through those glasses of fairness. We’re always sizing up, always calculating, always feeling like we’re owed something by our friends, our family, our church, or even by God.

But there’s another way to look at the world, another way to get up every morning and experience life and that’s by putting on the glasses of grace. When you replace your lenses of fairness with the glasses of grace you wake up most mornings realizing that it’s better than you deserve. And the hard days, well you work to believe that they’re for your good, and when people succeed, you smile. Instead of experiencing life as a series of disappointments where you don’t get what you deserve, you experience life as a gift, and whatever good you have you say that’s God’s grace, and whatever good you see in someone else’s life you say that’s God’s grace. That’s a profoundly different way of viewing the world.

When you wake up each day and you put on the lenses of fairness you will always feel as though you’ve been put in last place when you deserve first. But when you walk through life wearing the glasses of grace then you know the joy of believing that you have been given first place, though you surely deserve what is last. I wonder, “How are we viewing the world?” Have you – husband, wife, parent, grandparent, friend, neighbor, stranger, pastor – only been putting on the lenses of fairness rather than the glasses of grace? How are we looking at the world? That’s what I want us to consider. Let’s see what Jesus has to say about this. Follow along with me as I read Matthew 20:1-16:

1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.”

“Now our Father, once again, we ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of truth – to teach us through Your written Word. We ask that this word may quicken our souls to a deeper appreciation for Your kindness and Your mercy upon us. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

There’s no need for me to explain the facts of the parable. Right? I mean, we all understand this. We’ve all seen this in some shape or form. Right? A business owner goes down to the unemployment office or the local labor finders location and says, “Hey, hey, I’ve got some work and I’ll pay you minimum wage” (that’s roughly the value of a denarius). Some of those standing in line say, “Sure, I’ll go with you.” He takes them to his business and puts them to work. This takes place at 6:00 a.m. (daybreak), that’s when the Jews started counting the hours. He goes back out at the third hour (9:00 a.m.) and does the same thing, and again at the sixth hour (12:00 p.m.), the ninth hour (3:00 p.m.), and then again at the eleventh hour (5:00 p.m.) – just one hour from quitting time. When the factory whistle blows (at 6:00 p.m.) the business owner calls the foreman in and starts handing out paychecks and he gives all the workers the same pay. Naturally, this upset the first group because they worked longer and harder than the last Yahoos, and so they complained to the business owner. In reply to their complaints, the business owner asks three questions and these questions will reveal a lot about our hearts and a lot about God.

Did You Not Agree With Me For A Denarius?

Verse 13, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?’ Let’s be honest. All of us would side with the earliest workers because they were there first. They worked harder. They sweated more. And these slackers rolled in at 5:00 p.m. and didn’t have to endure the non-airconditioned factory floor. They didn’t work for 12 hours. And so, they’re thinking what all of us are thinking: “We’ve been here from sunup to sundown and these loafers got here an hour ago and what gives him the right to give them as much as he gives us?” And you can’t help but put your Bible down and say, “Yeah, what about that, Jesus? That’s not what I would want from my employer.” Jesus does this with the parables. I’ve told you that there’s always this hook, this switcheroo, this detail that captures our attention.

Listen to this illustration from pastor, author, and theologian Kevin DeYoung. He writes:

The food I enjoy the most is pizza. I would be embarrassed to tell you how many times a week I eat pizza. When I was in college and everyone gathered around and wanted to order pizza I always took charge of the ordering – not because I was a good leader but because I knew what would happen and I wanted to make sure that we had enough pizza.

See, I grew up in a godly family, and every Friday night we had pizza from Little Caesar’s. We had four large pizzas for six people because you don’t want to run out of pizza. But it was a great culture shock when I married into my wife’s family. It was one of the first times we were there and my mother-in-law, whom I love, was really trying to serve and be accommodating and we were having pizza. We had my brother-in-law and his wife and kids, me and my wife, and my in-laws, so there were about 8-9-10 of us but only one pizza and it was in the oven. In my wife’s family before you eat pizza you eat salad and some yogurt and waste all the space in your stomach.

So, when I was in college, I took charge because you want to have enough. But I also took charge because you want to make sure you have the right kind – I want pepperoni. And you’d always have a person (generally a young woman) who said, “I don’t want anything. Maybe just a piece.” But you know what; the next time you see her she has three slices of pepperoni on her plate. And I would be so uptight about this, so I wanted to take everyone’s order.

“Ok, so you want two pieces. Hey everybody, she’s a twofer. Got it? Ok, three, and you said you wanted tofu. You’re not going to eat any of this. No pepperoni, ok?” I make sure everyone’s lined up because when the pizza comes, I don’t want the person who only put in one dollar to get my five dollars’ worth. I don’t want the person who only wants broccoli and gluten-free stuff to eat my pepperoni. You can tell I have some issues here, but I wanted to make sure that we got what we paid for. “You paid for one piece of veggie, that’s what you get. I paid five dollars to get a whole pepperoni pizza for myself.” I’m going around and checking because I wanted it to be fair.

We can be like this in the kingdom. We have some blessing police running around: “What’s God doing over there? Do you really deserve that?” The issue is, has God been faithful to you? Has God delivered on the promises He made to you? God is not unfair so long as He gives us what He promised. That’s the point He’s making. “Did I not promise you a denarius? I gave you a denarius. Where’s the unfairness? I gave you exactly what I promised.” But some of us are always looking over someone else’s shoulder.

What has God promised you? Has He promised to give you wisdom? Surely, you can look back on your life and see how He’s answered your prayers for wisdom. Hasn’t God been true to make even the hardest things in your life work for your good? Oh, we need vacations, don’t get me wrong, but when you look back over your life it’s not the vacation to Disney World that refined you, that shaped you, that caused your faith to grow, it was the diagnosis, it was the divorce, it was the layoff and on the other side you say, “God had a plan and a purpose.” What undeserved blessings has God given us? Are you looking at life through the lenses of fairness or the glasses of grace?

Am I Not Allowed To Do What I Choose With What Belongs To Me?

Here’s the second question (verses 14-15), “Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” You see, the laborers were complaining about their rights. We worked all day and they only worked one hour, yet we didn’t get paid more. Don’t we have a right to our fair share? That’s what the laborers are arguing. But the master sees this business of rights a little differently. He says, “You have a right to receive exactly what I promised you. That’s your right. So, take your paycheck and go. But let’s talk about another ‘right.’ Don’t I have a right to do what I want with my money?” Jesus is making this point: God is in debt to no one. He gives according to His grace. It’s out of His inexhaustible riches that any of us have any good gift. It’s His money, His gifts, His blessing, His talents, His church, His opportunities and He distributes it as He pleases. We’re clay. He’s the potter. He can do what He wants.

Whether you arrive at six in the morning or the eleventh hour it’s the kindness of the master to call you in, to hire you, to promise you and to give you what He’s promised. Remember, this isn’t about your employment. This parable isn’t about working at Home Depot. This parable isn’t about raising the minimum wage. It’s about the kingdom (look at verse 1, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”). The kingdom doesn’t operate according to our labor but according to God’s generosity.

In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was commonly associated with a vineyard (Isaiah 5 and 27). In Jesus’ day, indeed when He’s teaching this parable, tax collectors and Gentiles are coming into the kingdom, are being grafted into the vine, are becoming a part of the vineyard. And these Jews who had been there since 6:00 in the morning – they had the patriarchs and the law and the traditions and they went through the Exodus and the captivity and all their labors in the heat of the sun and now (at 5:00 p.m.) some Gentiles come wandering in. “And they end up in heaven with us? It’s not fair, I tell you!” That’s why Jesus says, “Doesn’t God have a right to do what He wants with His grace?”

Or Do You Begrudge My Generosity?

And that brings us to the heart of the matter (verse 15), “Or do you begrudge my generosity?” The business owner says, “Let’s get down to brass tacks. This isn’t about a denarius. It’s not about your hard labor in the sun. It’s about your heart. You’re upset because I’m generous.” Are you the type of person who marvels at God’s generosity, or are you the type of person who gets envious of it? You think, “I wouldn’t be so unhappy with what I have, except that I see others having so much more.” This is where social media is a negative influence. If you’re on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, or Tik Tok, or YouTube, or any of the other hundreds of online spaces then it’s just a perpetual temptation to jealousy. Everything that everyone else has or does – you see their jobs, and their vacations, and their money, and their opportunities, and their abilities, and their looks, and their connections. And don’t think that pastors are immune from this. We see colleagues with bigger churches and ministries and platforms, colleagues who are more gifted preachers or teachers, colleagues whose children are following in the ministry, or whatever. There’s always going to be something or someone else out there.

Do you begrudge my generosity? It’s a big vineyard, and it needs a lot of workers, and may the Lord bless as many as He chooses with as many gifts as He pleases. And Jesus concludes with verse 16, “So the last will be first, and the first last.” That’s the point of the three questions. Now, don’t get caught up trying to figure out how that works. See, if you’re like me you think, “Well, if the last become first and the first become last, then didn’t they just switch places and thus the first (who are now last) will be first again, and the last (who are now first) will be last again and how does that cycle stop?” It’s not a math problem. Jesus simply means that the kingdom of heaven is not like the world. It’s inverted. It’s surprising. It’s not first come first serve. It’s not based on seniority. God allows for rolling admissions. And once you’re in the kingdom, the master isn’t keeping track of when you got there or whether you really deserve His eternal blessing (because you don’t).

What’s so great about being last, anyway? Well, it’s this, the last will be first because they know that they’re last. The first will be last because they think, for all the world, that they’re really first. Do you want to make yourself very happy? Go through life saying, “I ought to be in last place. But look at me; I’m here in the middle of the pack. I can’t believe it.” Those sorts of people end up first. Do you want to make yourself and everyone else around you miserable, have this big chip on your shoulder, and walk around as if everyone owes you something because of your history, or your theology, or your obedience, or your parenting, or your achievements, or because of your golf handicap. So let’s do ourselves (and everyone else) a favor and take off the lenses of fairness and put on the glasses of grace.

Parables: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector – Luke 18:9-14

• July 14, 2024
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Luke 18:9-14

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Luke 18. As I’ve mentioned before, part of the difficulty in dealing with these parables is that we don’t live in the first century. There are nuances, and subtleties, and cultural attitudes, and ingrained patterns, and unspoken feelings and sensibilities that existed in the first century that we know nothing about. These are the things that illuminate the story. These are the things that make it live. These are the things that allow us to experience God in it.

Take the story of the good Samaritan that we studied last week. The very words “Good Samaritan” have become synonymous with goodness, haven’t they? So, when Jesus told us that it was a Samaritan who stopped to help the injured man, we weren’t surprised. We didn’t inhale scandalously and cover our mouths at the mere mention of the word. Why? Because we’re not the original audience. In fact, the audacious hammer blow of humility that the parable delivered to Jesus’ original audience is almost nonexistent for us because we know all about “Good Samaritans.” Or so we thought.

The same is true of the parable to which we turn this morning. Follow along with me as I read this morning’s text and let’s pray that God might provide a similar experience:

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

“Our Father, as we gather around Your Word, we plead for the assistance of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of truth – so that we may hear the words of Jesus in this parable. We pray that not only would we hear them with our ears but with our souls, such that the truth of these words might pierce us to the very core of our being. For we ask it in the name of Christ. Amen.”

As I said a moment ago, it’s been helpful for me to look for ways to make these parables a bit more contemporary, a bit more modern, a bit more normative to our experience, so that we can see and feel the outrageous nature of Jesus’ teaching and be struck in the heart by exactly what He’s saying. In studying these parables, I came across an old book (c. 1995) called A Sting in the Tail, written by Roy Clements. Sit back and listen to how Roy re-writes this parable for us:

Jack and Joe went to church one evening. Jack knew his way around. Well, he’d been brought up in the place, hadn’t he? Sunday School from the age of three, and all that. He knew his parents would be there, too, in one of the other pews, watching him proudly. He wanted to make sure they saw him. So, he walked right up to the front and sat in the first row. He bowed his head and shut his eyes for a few moments. He’d seen his dad do that; he knew it looked holy.

Jack, you see, took his religion very seriously. He carried a big Bible and knew all the latest choruses. He liked the image of being a highly principled young man, too. Unlike many of his peers, he never consumed alcohol or cigarettes. He was also extremely self-righteous about sex. No messing around behind the school bike sheds for him. He and his girlfriend had intellectual conversations about vegetarianism and the nuclear issue. Instead of going to discos, they went to prayer meetings at the youth leader’s house.

As Jack reflected on his life in those few moments before the service began, he glowed with inward satisfaction. How reassuring it was to know that you were a good Christian! Nothing to confess, nothing to feel ashamed about, nothing out of place…

Good grief, it couldn’t be! Out of the comer of his eye he caught sight of a familiar figure who had just entered the church behind him. “It’s Joe,” he thought incredulously. “What on earth is he doing here? He’s no right to come to church, the old hypocrite!” But if he had been able to read Joe’s mind, he would have realized that precisely the same thoughts were going through his head too.

What right, Joe thought, did he have to be in church? He hadn’t been in church for years. In fact, he felt thoroughly uncomfortable in the place. He kept looking around nervously as if he expected somebody in authority to appear at any moment and tell him he had no business to be there. He was unsure where to sit, or if there was some special ritual he should observe before committing himself to stay. Didn’t Christians cross themselves before they sat down in church? Or was that Muslim? He really couldn’t remember. In the end, he slid cautiously into the very back row. “Oh no,” he wailed inwardly, “that’s Jack in the front, and he’s seen me. I’ll never live this down in the neighborhood now.” He crumpled up, his legs tucked under the pew, his head sagging down between his knees, trying to hide.

As you may have guessed, Joe was not the religious sort. In fact, he had a reputation as a bit of a lad. If there was trouble with the police, you could bet he’d be involved. Nicotine stained his fingers and there was a distinct smell of beer on his breath. In fact, he’d been in the pub down the road only fifteen minutes before.

Why on earth had he come to church? Was it because of the argument he’d had that morning at home, thrown out on his ear for stealing his mother’s money again? Or was it because of the sense of humiliation he was feeling as a result of Julie slapping him around the face last night and telling him in unambiguous four-letter words to get out of her life, just because she discovered he was also sleeping with Karen? Yes, it was both of those things and neither of them. Somehow, as he tried unsuccessfully to drown his sorrows in that beer, he’d just been overcome with a sense of how dirty he was, and what a mess he’d made of things. Suddenly, sitting in that back pew, guilt and shame brought tears to his eyes, a blush to his cheek, and a lump to his throat. “Oh, God,” he sighed quietly, into clenched fists. “Oh, God.”

I tell you, it was Joe who went home a believer that night, not Jack.

So, here we are. Two people. Two prayers. Two payoffs. But before we get to the two characters, notice that verse 9 tells us something particularly important about the audience. “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” Unlike our other parables, where Jesus was addressing the disciples or, generally, the crowd, this particular parable is being directed to those who trusted in themselves.

The dominant religious idea in Judaism at the time of Jesus, and quite frankly the one that dominates most of the world today is the idea that good people go to heaven – if you’re moral and you’re religious then you can achieve salvation, you can escape from divine judgment, you can become acceptable to God. The average person in the world says, “It’s a matter of how good you are, how moral you are, and how spiritual or religious you are.”

There are only two possibilities here. Either you can be good enough to achieve a right relationship with God, or you can’t. Either you can earn salvation by morality and religion, or you can’t. That’s, really, all there is to discuss. The true religion, the religion of Scripture, the true way of salvation says you cannot, by your own effort, your own self-righteousness, your own morality, your own religiosity or spirituality please God and thus earn acceptance with Him. Every other religious system in the world is a system of human achievement, to one degree or another, that assumes that you can do something to achieve a right relationship with God. It’s a damnable lie, and it’s to such people that this story is directed.

Now, if that upsets your sensibilities and offends you, if I’m being too fundamental or conservative if I’m sounding like a hell, fire, and brimstone preacher, then so be it, but that’s the overarching message of the Bible – frankly that’s the message of Jesus in this parable.

And the issue starts with an understanding of what God’s requirement is. It’s stated for us in Leviticus 11:44, “Be holy for I Am holy.” Jesus reiterated it in the New Testament when He said, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). God’s requirement is perfection. You have to be as good as God, you have to be as holy as God, you have to be as righteous as God. And either you can achieve that, or you can’t. The Bible clearly indicates that you can’t. Romans 3:20 says, “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” You can’t do it by keeping God’s law. James 2:10 says, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” So, there’s no way to God by morality, law-keeping, and religious effort. And that’s the point of this story.

But before we go home, let’s look ever so briefly at the two people, the two prayers, and the two payoffs.

The Two People

Verse 10 says, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” I want you to notice the similarities and the differences. First, the similarities, both men went up to the temple. There were two times a day when the people of Jerusalem would ascend the steps on the south side of the temple: 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Both of those services were ordained by God in Numbers 28. The 9 a.m. service would include a burnt sacrifice and priestly blessings. The 3 p.m. service would include an offering of incense (symbolizing prayer to God) and other components and elements, as well. So, they both go up to the temple. Both guys recognize the importance of temple attendance, of being at the temple, of going to the temple.

Second, and connected to the first, they both go up to the temple to pray. And “pray” is simply a synonym for “worship.” They go up there to express their adoration and worship of God. They go up there because they know there’s going to be a sacrifice offered and they want that sacrifice to apply to them. They want the benefits of that atonement to fall upon them. They go to pray, to receive the blessing, and to participate in the ceremony.

Now for their differences. One is a Pharisee. Here, again, we’ve been conditioned, many of us, to equate the Pharisee with the “bad guy” – and rightly so, but not for the audience of Jesus’ day, not for the regular Jew in the crowd. The Pharisee is the most religious, the most respectable, the most honored, and the most revered man. He was the churchman of his day. He was the Bible student; fundamental and conservative in his view of Scripture, scrupulous in his observance of God’s law, a patriot, a philanthropist, a model of holiness, an enthusiastic supporter of the Ten Commandments being posted in courthouses and prayer being offered in school classrooms. His Mount Rushmore would’ve included Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. He would’ve worn a red ballcap with the letters M-I-G-A on it: Make Israel Great Again.

Not so, the tax man. In Jesus’ day, a tax man was a crook, a treacherous, despicable collaborator with the Roman enemy, who made himself rich by exploiting his fellow countrymen. Think of some provincial mayor in France lining his fat pockets during the days of the Occupation by licking the boots of the Nazis, and you get a sense of how Jews felt about tax men in the first century. They didn’t make sarcastic jokes about tax men, they lynched them. They spat on them, and they cursed the ground they walked on.

One, the Pharisee, is a self-professed righteous man. The other, the tax collector, is a self-professed unrighteous man. Now be honest, which one sounds more like you? Oh, sure, we all say the tax collector, but that’s only because, in the words of the late Paul Harvey, “we know the rest of the story.” The truth is we’re much more like the Pharisee than we ever were the tax collector. Remember that, as we look at their prayers.

The Two Prayers

This is the point where the contrasts between the two men becomes overwhelmingly clear. In the ESV, verse 11 begins this way, “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus…” There aren’t many times that I don’t prefer the ESV translation, but this is one of them. The Greek text is more akin to the KJV, NKJV, and the NASB, and I believe you’ll hear the difference. Here’s how the Greek text reads, “The Pharisee, having stood, thus toward himself was praying…” That’s a rather dramatic shift if you ask me. Essentially, what he was doing was praying to himself. This is a monologue. This is an oration. This is a speech, not a prayer. He has no relationship with God. This is nothing more than a self-induced spiritual soliloquy in which he talks to himself.

And he offers himself congratulations for his moral and religious achievements. Count this: five times in two verses he refers to himself. ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ It seems pretty clear to me who he worshiped, right? He invokes the name of God only because that’s the respectable thing to do. He doesn’t ask God for anything. Why would he? In his view, there’s really not anything he needs. He doesn’t lack anything. His thanks isn’t really a thanks to God at all. After all, why thank God for what you’ve achieved on your own?

And so, in his prayer to himself, he affirms how righteous he is, first of all, in the negative, verse 11, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men…”. Unequivocal confession of his worthiness and his righteousness and his utter superiority to everybody else. It’s sickening, except for the fact that we hear it in ourselves, don’t we? He even names some people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, and even tax collectors. I’m not like the greasy politicians, or the Wall Street tycoons, or the Hollywood movie stars. And you know what, he probably wasn’t an adulterer, even though he had a corrupt heart and even though he had wicked thoughts and even though he had evil intentions. He probably wasn’t that bad on the outside, but I’m certain he’d lusted at some point and thus committed adultery in his heart. I’m certain he’d hated his brother at one time or another and was thus guilty of murder. He just didn’t conduct his life on the outside the way those other people did.

What was it that Jesus said in Matthew 23:27-28, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous but, on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Yeah, that’s this guy.

And then he turns the table and begins speaking of himself in positive terms, “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” Israel was required to fast twice a year. The Pharisees, however, fasted twice a week. A Pharisee didn’t just tithe from his income; if he found a dime on the sidewalk, he would tithe 10% of that. Oh, and also his spices, don’t forget to tithe the spices: mint, cummin, anise. Fastidiously religious, avoiding all kinds of external sins and manifesting this kind of detailed allegiance to the law. And so, he celebrates his righteousness. That’s the prayer of the Pharisee.

Now the story changes and we’re introduced to the tax collector’s prayer. “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” Right from the beginning they’re different. The tax collector stands far off. Like Joe, he’s in the back row in the corner trying to avoid being seen by anyone. Not the Pharisee – by implication he’s probably taking the most prominent position in the temple. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:5, “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men.”

Next, notice, he wasn’t even willing to lift up his eyes to heaven. He’s overwhelmed with guilt. He’s overwhelmed with shame. It shows up in his posture. He knows he’s unworthy. He’s a swindler. He’s unjust, dishonest, a cheat, corrupt, immoral, irreligious, he’s a law-breaker. He knows it, he feels it, he believes it, and he confesses it. He has that sense of alienation. He feels the weight of sin and brokenness, the accompanying conviction and remorse. He experiences the pain and fear and dread of deserved punishment and judgment. His location says it and so does his posture.

Thirdly, so does his behavior. Verse 13 says he began beating his chest. There’s only one other place in the New Testament where it happens and it’s at the cross of Calvary just after Jesus died. One commentator even said, “It takes something of the magnitude of Golgotha to evoke this gesture from Middle Eastern men.” Extreme sorrow. Extreme anguish. Beating his chest – the place where the heart resides – as if to agree with Jesus’ teaching “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man” (Matthew 15:19-20). He understands. This guy understands his own sinfulness. His location demonstrates it. His posture demonstrates it. His behavior demonstrates it. He knows what’s in his heart. He’s anguished over his guilt. He’s broken over his shame. He’s crushed and humbled. And it comes out in his prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

The Two Payoffs

So, what’s the difference between these two? The difference is repentance. You find a lot of people who believe things that are biblical, believe in the Jesus of the New Testament, believe in the New Testament to one degree or another, believe in the cross, believe in the resurrection. The element of faith so often in the Bible, so often in the gospels, the element of faith is sort of a given, that they believe in God and the God who is revealed in Scripture, etc., etc. The issue comes down to whether or not they will repent of sin in a genuine act of penitence.

This is not a general plea for mercy. The Greek word that’s used is propitiation – appeasement, atonement, covering. All we want to do is say God loves you and has this wonderful purpose for your life, and God wants you to have joy and happiness and all of this, and if you just ask Him, He’ll be merciful to you. That’s not what he’s saying in this short prayer. He’s saying, “I’m a wretched sinner. I’m unworthy to stand near you. I’m unworthy to look up to you. I’m in profound agony and anguish over my wretchedness. I need an atonement for my sins.” That’s what he’s saying. This is about sin and atonement.

The defining distinction here is that the first man has nothing for which to what? (Repent.) He’s like the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:20, paraphrased). He says, “I’ve kept everything since my youth. I can’t find anything I need to confess or repent of.” That’s the issue. There’s no possibility of salvation apart from this kind of repentance because this is the defining element. And what was Jesus’ response (v. 14), “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.” What!? That’s not what the rabbis tell you. That’s not what the scribes tell you. That’s not what your family, and friends, and neighbors in the village will tell you. Jesus says, “I tell you, this man went down to his house having been made just, having been made righteous, having been made acceptable.”

Think of it, Jesus, God in human flesh, the holy One, the perfect sinless One says that in one moment an extreme sinner can be pronounced instantly righteous without any works, without any merit, without any worthiness, without any law-keeping, without any moral achievement or religious achievement, without spiritual accomplishment or ritual. No time-lapse, no penance, no works, no ceremony, no sacrament, no meritorious activity whatsoever, no nothing, just an instant declaration of justification on the spot, permanent. Wow! How can that be? Because the only righteousness that God will accept is perfect righteousness and since you can’t earn it, He gives it as a gift to the remorseful who put their trust in Him. That’s the gospel. Have you received it?

Parables: The Good Samaritan – Luke 10:25-37

• July 7, 2024
• Pastor
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Luke 10:25-37

As always, let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Luke 10 – the very familiar parable of The Good Samaritan. We all know what it means to call someone a “Good Samaritan.” It’s a compliment. It’s one of the few biblical illustrations that our society has embraced. Almost every state has some “Good Samaritan” law in place to protect people from being sued who attempt to help in emergencies. Generally, it means someone has shown kindness, mercy, compassion, and care to someone in need. That’s good. That’s virtuous. God is honored by that.

But that being said, the parable of The Good Samaritan is largely misunderstood. For most people, even most of us, this is a story about helping someone in need. But that’s not the point. It’s a story about how someone inherits eternal life. Why do I say that? Because that’s the question that initiated the story in the first place. Go back with me to verse 25 and let’s pick up there. Jesus is teaching, and in the middle of His teaching…

25 [B]ehold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

“Our Father and our God, as we look at this familiar parable, we ask that You, by Your Spirit, would take us beyond the familiar to a deeper and richer understanding of the things contained therein. Help us to hear Jesus in His teaching of these things. For we ask it in His name. Amen.”

Pretty simple story, right? Easy to understand. We even get the punchline. Who’s the neighbor? The man who helped. But going back, for example, to the early church Fathers, you have strange allegories developed around this story.

History

For example, one of the early church fathers by the name of Origen said, “Here’s the interpretation of the story. The man is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise. Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers, demonic forces. The priest is the law. The Levite is the prophets. The Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience. The animal is the Lord’s body. The inn is the church, and the Samaritan’s return is the Second Coming.”

Now that’s bizarre. It’s completely detached from the context. In fact, when he was exposed to Origen’s commentary, John Calvin said, “That misses entirely our Lord’s intention.” But modern interpreters have missed the point as well. Any time you get into discussions with people who talk about poverty and the alleviation of poverty and the reallocation of wealth and taxing the wealthy to provide for the poor and social justice and all forms of socialism, you’ll find the story of the Good Samaritan being emphasized.

For example, the Sojourners organization says this: “You only have so many days to embrace someone, to tell him how you feel. Forty-seven million in our country are on food stamps and benefits are decreasing. We need to reflect on Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan.” So, according to them, Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan is about helping people who have less than we do.

Jim Wallis, one of the founders of Sojourners, says, “The Good Samaritan is a problem. It seems to promote short-term aid without addressing long-term justice. For example, what were the social conditions that led the man to abuse the wounded man, and was it a predictable outcome of a deeper societal illness?” He says, “Was the Good Samaritan later inspired to engage the dilemma through advocacy? The Good Samaritan is open-ended, leaving us an assortment of questions in relation to the preservation of social justice. What would happen if the Good Samaritan went down the road daily and began to critique the political and economic agendas of those in power in that area?” Further he says, “We need to dig out the root causes of injustice that made the man steal. May we create a world where in 500 years, Sunday school classes are bewildered by this story because violence never happens and Good Samaritans are needed no more.”

Another advocate of this kind of interpretation said, “We need to transform the Jericho Road so the whole community is free from harm.” Now, hear me out. I believe in compassion and care, and I believe in meeting the needs of poor people, but these kinds of commentaries have absolutely nothing to do with the story. Most of us wouldn’t get so caught up. We’d simply say it’s about helping people that are suffering. It’s about being kind. And certainly, God requires us to be kind. But remind yourself of this: all parables are salvation stories and this is a salvation story.

This is a picture of personal evangelism – an opportunity for salvation. It’s parallel to Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3. It’s parallel to Jesus and the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. So, let’s set the scene and see if we can’t rediscover the real meaning of The Good Samaritan. Go back to verse 25. This is what establishes the intent of the parable.

“A lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test.” This guy’s motive wasn’t good. He wasn’t seeking truth. He wasn’t seeking information. He was doing what the scribes and Pharisees always did. He was trying to trap Jesus. He was part of the religious establishment that wanted Jesus gone. He was a lawyer, not in a civil or criminal sense but in a religious sense. He was an expert of the Old Testament law.

So, he stands up and puts Jesus to a test hoping He’ll fail. And he asks Him the same question the rich young ruler asked Him. He asked Him the same question that Nicodemus had on his heart. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? What’s the path to heaven? What’s the path to a right relationship to God that’s going to guarantee that I am going to live forever in the presence of God?” That’s a very important question. But he didn’t ask it for the right reason. He asked it for the sole purpose of putting Jesus to the test. And that’s what gives rise to the parable. It’s not a question of social justice. It’s a question of eternal life.

Now notice the path that Jesus takes. “He said to him, ‘What’s written in the law? How do you read it? What does the law say? Let’s go back to the Word of God. You have the Old Testament. What does it say?’” Well, this is a sharp scholar. He knows his Torah, and he gives exactly the right answer. He combines two scriptures, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said that’s right. Verse 28, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” So, go do it. If you want eternal life, then fulfill the law. Do this and live.

You say, “Whoa, whoa. Why is Jesus telling him that? Where’s the gospel? Why doesn’t Jesus just say, ‘Believe in Me’?” Because there’s another issue to be confronted here, and the issue is how the man views himself. There’s no Good News unless the man accepts the bad news, right? This man doesn’t have any interest in a true evaluation of his condition and verse 29 makes it clear, “But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” This guy is so self-righteous that he doesn’t even think about how he loves God or how he loves man. All he thinks about is maybe you’ve got a different definition of neighbor. The only thing I need to work on is maybe you’ve got a different spin on who my neighbor is.

See, the scribes and Pharisees didn’t love their enemies – something Jesus challenged in His sermon on the mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” So, our enemies are our neighbors, too. And he didn’t love strangers, even though Leviticus 19:34 says, “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” He only loved people who were like him, who thought like him, who looked like him, who lived the same lifestyle as him, who voted like him – basically he only loved other scribes and Pharisees. And he would’ve relied on passages like Psalm 139:21-22 as his defense, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with the utmost hatred. They have become my enemies.”

So that’s why the mocking statement, “Well, who is my neighbor? You’re going to have to show me a different definition of neighbor.” He thinks he loves God perfectly, and he thinks he loves the people he’s supposed to love – at least the ones that God expects him to love. “I’m okay with God. I’m okay with people. I’m fine. Jesus, maybe you’d better tell me who my neighbor is.” That’s the background. That’s the context. That’s the history that’s gotten us to this point in the text.

Hypocrites

At this point, Jesus could’ve just left the guy standing there. He could’ve just dismissed the guy, right. Can’t you hear Jesus thinking, “Well, I can see you’ve got a hard heart. You’re too prideful to accept any teaching. I’m not going to waste any more of my time with you.” But Jesus always had compassion. And so, He’s going to give him one more opportunity to see himself in light of his sin. And how’s Jesus going to do that? By telling a story. It seems like a simple story of kindness, but it isn’t. It’s far more profound than that. Let’s look at it (verse 30).

Jesus casts the story in a familiar place, the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho. The road is still used today and it descends for about 4,000 feet in 17 miles. Basically, it was like going from our church down to the coast. It’s steep. It’s barren. It’s winding back and forth. In a day before artificial lighting, it was the perfect place to hide out and wait for some unsuspecting traveler. In fact, Joshua 18:17 has this very road associated with the ascent of Adummim, which is related to the Hebrew word for “blood.” This story takes place on “bloody pass.” Don’t tell me Jesus doesn’t know how to tell a story.

And a certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and the predictable happened; he fell among robbers. A group of thugs jumped the guy. They didn’t just rob him. They stripped him. They didn’t just take his smartphone and wallet; they took everything and left him virtually naked. And then they beat him. And the term for “beat” has the idea of repeated blows. They pummeled him. Today, we’d say he was in critical condition. He was in the process of dying. The guy is in desperate need of help on a lonely road where a lot of time could pass before anybody came along and there was no guarantee that someone would find him or help him.

Then Jesus introduces a little bit of hope (verse 31) – a priest happens along. You couldn’t have asked for a better solution. I mean, here comes a priest, a servant of God, one who offered sacrifices for people in the temple, one who lifted the people up before God, one who was to be a paragon of spiritual virtue, the best of men, the godliest, the most righteous, the personification of virtue. He would’ve known Leviticus 19:34, which says that if you see a stranger in need, you do whatever it takes to meet his need. Surely, he would’ve known Exodus 23:4-5 that says if you find your enemy’s donkey in a ditch, you make sure you rescue the man’s donkey, let alone the man. He would’ve known Psalm 37:21 that the righteous is gracious and gives. A priest would’ve known the wonderful words of the prophet Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” He would’ve known what God expected, right? Not quite. What happens? The priest passes by on the other side. And the word that Luke uses for “passes by” has the prefix anti in it. It’s in the opposite direction. It’s the other side of the road. It’s as far away as he could get without falling off the cliff himself.

Remember, this is about loving your neighbor. What can we conclude, so far? The priest had no love. Jesus has immediately turned the lawyer’s question on its head. The expert asked, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus turned it around and said, “Let’s talk about who is neighborly.” Instead of talking about who qualifies to be your neighbor, let’s talk about the quality with which you love. It’s not about who qualifies, it’s about the character of your love.

Now, I just have to mention this in passing, because you’ll find it in just about every commentary – authors will speculate on why the priest and the Levite didn’t help the man. They’ll offer all kinds of things like: he thought the guy was dead and he didn’t want to touch a corpse and render himself ceremonially unclean, or he was afraid of the same fate (like maybe the robbers were still hiding there), or, like last week’s parable, he didn’t want to render aid to someone he thought might be under the wrath and punishment of God. You want to know something. It’s all speculation. The priest and the Levite didn’t really exist. This is an imaginary story. Furthermore, if the priest or Levite really did have a reason for passing by, then Jesus would’ve shared it because it would’ve excused them from being neighborly. But they didn’t have an excusable reason for passing by and thus it’s moot. The point Jesus is making is simple. Of all people, the priest should’ve helped but he didn’t.

And then Jesus goes on in verse 32, “Likewise a Levite also…” Levites and priests both came from the tribe of Levi, but in order to be a priest you had to be from the line of Aaron. So, all priests were Levites but not all Levites were priests (if that makes sense). Levites were the assistants to the priests. They were the temple police. They attended to all of the ceremonial stuff behind the scenes. Some of you come from church backgrounds where people called “acolytes” assist the presiding minister in some of the duties of the service. Levites were the acolytes of their day. And his response was the same as the priest. He passed by on the opposite side.

The point that Jesus is making here is you have the top of the religious system in the priest (he passes by) and you have the lowest of the religious system in the Levite (he passes by), and basically the implication is that from top to bottom the religious establishment is bankrupt. Being religious, doing all the ceremonies, being Jewish, being circumcised, being a part of the whole system, being as tightly connected to the religious system as you can get, being a priest and a Levite isn’t going to get you in the kingdom of God. And when you look at the character of these men, they don’t pass the test.

This is the attitude we see in life, even with ourselves. See if you can’t finish this sentence “I know I should probably help, but I don’t want to get ______? (Involved.) I don’t know what they might do to me.” I can hear some of you right now, “Thanks pastor! I used to like this parable, but not so much anymore.” Why? Because all too often we’re the priest or the Levite. We know enough to give the right answer but we don’t do the right thing. So, we’ve seen the history and the hypocrites. Let’s close by looking at the hero.

Hero

Every parable that Jesus tells has a twist, has a hook, has some detail that causes you to say, “Wait? What? Come again.” That’s verse 33, “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.” Two things you need to know about this Samaritan. First, assuming that the man needing help was a Jew, this was the worst possible thing. Samaritans and Jews had the most vitriolic relationship fathomable. Think blacks and whites. Think Republicans and Democrats. Think Clemson and S. Carolina. Or better yet, put all of those contrasts together and you begin to get a taste for the hatred of the Jews and Samaritans.

Samaritans were Jews who had intermarried with Gentiles in opposition to God’s commandment in the Old Testament and that set these family members apart from one another. And that separation only got worse as time went on. So much so, that by the time we get to the New Testament, if you’re a Jew then you go around Samaria when you’re going on vacation. You don’t dare step foot on Samaritan soil – that is, unless you’re Jesus, then you go straight through Samaria and you stop to have a conversation with one of their women at a well. If you wanted to say the worst thing about a person, the worst thing you could say is that they were a demon-possessed Samaritan, which is exactly what the Jews said of Jesus in John 8:48.

So, here comes a Samaritan and what’s his response going to be? In the words of the great theologian, Gomer Pile, “Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!” He had compassion! Here’s the point. Two men had no love, one man did. Two men were religious but had no love. Therefore, their religion did nothing to qualify them for the kingdom. One man, on the other hand, was a heretic, an outcast, and yet he loved. So, this issue of loving isn’t a matter of one’s religion. It’s something else. And here’s Jesus’ main point.

I told you there were two things you needed to know about the Samaritan. The first was their vitriolic relationship with the Jews. The second is the care he gave. Notice the brevity of Jesus’ description of the priest and Levite. They came. They saw. They passed by. But when Jesus gets to the Samaritan the description changes. All kinds of details begin to flow out. “He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’”

He bound the man’s wounds. With what? Jesus told us the man was stripped. So, the Samaritan used his own stuff: perhaps bandages he carried for such an occasion, or maybe even his own clothes. We don’t know, but we know he bound his wounds somehow. He poured on oil and wine – basic first aid in those days. He applied antiseptic (wine) and lubrication (oil). The Greek word for wounds is traumata. He had traumatic wounds that required whatever first aid was possible, even if that was oil and wine. Everybody traveling would’ve carried their own wine to drink and their own oil to cook with. So, here, you have a man giving his own clothing, his own drink, and his own oil for cooking. What else is he going to give? How about his own transportation? None of this, “He’ll get blood on the Napa leather upholstery. He’ll get dirt in the Alcantarra suede.” Nope, he puts the man on his own beast of burden. He took him to an inn and stayed overnight with the man – caring for him throughout the night. The next day he gave the innkeeper two denarii. Interesting note: I read that the lowest cost for a room at an inn would be equivalent to 1/32 of a denarius and the highest would be 1/12 of a denarius. So, basically the guy paid for 1-2 months room and board. And that’s not all, he also left his credit card with instructions to take care of the guy and when he returned he’d settle up on whatever more was spent.

This is staggering! This isn’t a minimal care. It’s maximum care. He set his whole agenda aside. He gave up his own clothes, his own supplies, his own time. He stayed all night by his bed, making sure he was cared for. Never met the man, total stranger, doesn’t know how he got in his condition, doesn’t ask how he got there; it doesn’t matter. The only issue was how can I love this man to the full extent of his need? This is over the top.

You say, “Well, I saw a stranger one time in need and I gave him five bucks.” Did you ever see somebody you didn’t know, better yet somebody who was your arch-enemy and you went over, ministered to all their needs, gave them everything they needed, stayed with them, took them somewhere, put them to bed, fed them, stayed all night to make sure they recovered appropriately, then paid for their care for up to two months and said if it’s more than this, when I come back I’ll give you all the rest? Have you ever done that for anybody?

I’ll tell you who you’ve done that for – yourself! That’s how we care for ourselves, isn’t it? Give me whatever I need. Get me to the best doctor; get me to the best place; take care of me as long as I need it. We buy insurance policies, we get in HMOs. We do whatever we need to assure ourselves the best care. We might get close to this with a friend or a family member because we love them, but we’re not talking about family; we’re talking about a stranger. This just isn’t done.

You say, “Well, are you saying nobody’s ever done it?” No, it could be done and some have done it, and perhaps you’ve done something very generous like this on occasion. That’s not the issue. The issue is, have you loved strangers like this your entire life? Of course not! This is about limitless love. This is about a man who said I will care for this man with no limit. I will love this man though he’s my enemy and a stranger. Whatever it is that this man needs, I’ll give it to him with no limits. He has an open account. When I come back, you just tell me what it took and I’ll take care of it. Let me tell you something. That’s what it takes all of the time to earn your way into God’s kingdom. Does anybody qualify? (No.) And that’s the point of the parable. That’s the answer to the lawyer’s question way back in verse 25. You want to know what it takes to inherit eternal life? Love God and love your neighbor like this every moment of every day for the rest of your life. But we can’t and we won’t and that was Jesus’ point.

But there was One who loved God and His neighbor like this. There was One who said, “I will love this man, this woman, this child, even though they’re enemies and strangers to me. I’ll give My very life. I’ll take their sin upon Myself so that in Me they might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).” And if we’ll just repent of our lack of love toward God and others, cry out for mercy and forgiveness from Jesus, then He will give us eternal life.

“Father, we thank You for the richness of this story, and we acknowledge that when we receive Your mercy and when we receive new life in Christ, we are given a divine enablement to love You and to love others. But that love is not perfect. We don’t love You perfectly. We don’t love others perfectly. And so, not only are we saved by grace, but we stand in grace, and we live in grace. Even in our most magnanimous acts of kindness and our greatest acts of generosity and mercy toward others, we never really get to the place where we love others the way we love ourselves. We always put limits on how much we love, especially if they’re a stranger and an enemy. And so, we all fall short of Your glory. We repent, we ask for mercy and forgiveness. Lord, as we come to Your table, may we see (anew, afresh) in these elements the tremendous extent to which You loved us and gave us eternal life. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Parables: The Rich Man and Lazarus – Luke 16:19-31

• July 1, 2024
• Pastor
• 0 Comments

Luke 16:19-31

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Luke 16. Today’s sermon is one you won’t hear in many churches because it affirms the reality of hell. In the words of one preacher, “This is the most terrifying parable Jesus ever told because He gives us a story about a man in hell.”

I was meeting with a group of men this week, and Bob Larson was in the group. I said, “Bob, I hope you and Geneva will be in church on Sunday because I’m going to be talking about hell.” To be clear, I didn’t say that because Bob doesn’t believe in hell. And I didn’t say that because Bob and Geneva aren’t Christians and are in danger of going to hell. Quite the contrary, they’re very faithful followers of Jesus and strong supporters and members of our church. I said that to Bob because he often laments his childhood denomination’s reluctance to address the realities of hell, both physically and spiritually.

And Bob isn’t alone in his anguish for mainline churches and Christians in today’s world. I was reading an article this week that said, “The Gallup Poll on Religion in America indicates that the majority of professing Christians believe in life after death. Most of these same people, however, reject any real idea of hell. The arguments for a heaven without a hell are based primarily not on sound biblical exegesis but on human sentiment. People simply prefer not to believe in hell. It’s a subject very few can discuss dispassionately. Yet, to deny the reality of hell, one must stand firmly opposed to the unambiguous teaching of Jesus.”

So, here’s the question: Have you examined your life? Some people will go months, years, or even a lifetime without examining their lives. They’ll never ask, “What have I been living for?” And ultimately, they’ll never consider, “What the final destination of their souls will be?”

Yet, if a lawsuit were brought against us, we would ask our lawyer, “Will we win this case?” If we stood as a defendant and the death penalty was a possible sentence, we would anxiously desire to know whether guilty or not guilty was a likelier verdict. When we’re sick, we ask our doctor what the likelihood of recovery is. If we’re scheduled for invasive surgery, we ask the surgeon about the chances of survival. And yet, some of us think little to nothing of our eternal soul. Why is that? Well, there could be a million different reasons but one of those reasons is because we live in the moment. Eternity is simply not in view.

This parable is clear – everybody dies. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Everybody will suffer death. Some will retire. Some will have kids. But all of us will die. It’s a reality of life. It’s the great equalizer. It unites us all and strips us all bare. We can’t use our influence, power, position, or riches to avoid it. It simply comes. And when it comes, our destination is immediate. That’s why the late pastor and theologian, Dr. R.C. Sproul said, “Of all the parables of Jesus, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is probably the most difficult for us to accept.”

Nevertheless, it comes to us from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ, and now I would ask you to give ear to the reading of the Word of God:

19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house – 28 for I have five brothers – so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

“Our Father and our God, send help, for we desperately need it to have ears to hear this teaching from our Savior. Every fiber of our being recoils in horror at the content of this parable. Even in our redeemed state, there are times that we desperately wish Jesus never told this story. But this is Your Word, O God, and Your Word is truth, so give us that truth in this hour. Amen.”

Before we unpack this parable (as it were), I want us to remember a couple of things. First, in His earthly ministry, as recorded for us in the New Testament, Jesus spoke more about hell than He did about heaven. It was (obviously) a matter of great importance and concern for Him. There’s no greater authority on these questions than Jesus of Nazareth, and if Jesus was wrong about this, then there’s no intelligent reason to believe Him about anything. If you’re a Christian, then the affirmation of the reality of hell is simply not optional.

So why is it that we struggle so deeply with the doctrine of hell? I think there are many reasons, but these two tend to fill my mind. First, we don’t really understand who God is. We have hardly a clue about the depth, breadth, and height of His perfection and holiness. Secondarily, we don’t have a clue about the sinfulness of sin. We’re quick to say, “To err is human, to forgive divine,” and equally swift to affirm that no one is perfect. We shrug our shoulders with the unspoken sentiment, “It’s not a big deal.” So, the awfulness of sin has never captured our understanding. What repentance we have before God is shallow at best, as we sugarcoat our offenses, not only against our neighbors but especially and ultimately against God Himself.

Having said all of that, let’s look at Jesus’ parable. I’m breaking it down into three (3) parts: life, death, and life after death. (Real creative, I know.)

Their Lives

The parable begins by explaining the condition of two men while they are still alive on the earth. There are two men: one of them rich, one of them impoverished; one of them comfortable, one of them miserable; one of them feasting, one of them starving; one of them named, one of them unnamed; one of them talks, one of them is silent. The contrasts are constant.

Now, just in passing, some of you may have grown up hearing the rich man referred to as Dives, as if that’s his name. That’s not his name; it’s simply the Latin word for “rich man.” The reason that I point that out is because some see the rich man being unnamed as another metaphor for hell. They say that one of the things about hell that makes it hell is that you’re alone. Not only are you in torment and agony and under the wrath of almighty God, but you’re alone – no relationships to give your existence any value or any meaning or in any way alleviate torment.

Another commentator that I read said, “We don’t know why Jesus didn’t name the rich man, but I think that Jesus wanted to express that the financial wealth the man possessed was the main thing that could be said about him.” His identity was solely in his riches, and apart from his financial wealth he had no life at all.

Lazarus, on the other hand, had a name. And to follow the analogy, if you have no name in hell because you’re alone and there are no relationships with which to identify yourself, then in heaven everyone has a name because heaven is a place of perfectly restored and reunited relationships. Furthermore, if you’re a student of the Bible, then you know that many of the names in the Bible have a meaning. Lazarus’ name is the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament name Eleazar, which means “[one] whom the Lord has helped.” So, one named and one unnamed.

Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day” (NKJV). This wasn’t a judgment against wealth. Joseph of Arimathea had great wealth. You might recall that he was the man who made his new tomb available for Jesus’ burial. Abraham and Job were two of the wealthiest people in the history of the world. There was no inherent evil in the man being wealthy, but this man was what we’d call uber-rich or filthy rich. He didn’t follow the aristocracy’s maxim of understated elegance.

He made an extravagant display of his wealth. He was the quintessential ostentatious rich man. He dressed like a king, wearing purple. Purple dye was nearly priceless in antiquity and reserved almost exclusively for royalty, so much so that to be a king was to be “of the purple.” This guy dressed up like a king, wearing purple and fine linen. In contemporary language, he was wearing Louis Vuitton, he wore Gucci, Giorgio Armani, and Ralph Lauren. But his wealth wasn’t limited to his clothing.

He lived lavishly, displaying his wealth in sumptuous extravagance every day. His feasts and his parties would’ve been very desirable tickets, and people would’ve been delighted to be invited to his home. Interestingly, Luke includes all of these little details. For example, Luke writes (in verse 20), “And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus…” This isn’t the gate that leads into your backyard – some little wooden thing hanging on a fence, but rather one of those large iron gates you see flanking the properties of the rich and famous in Miami, Bel Air, or dare I say it, The Cliffs. This man’s gate spoke of his status. He’s got it all, and all the time. This is as extreme as riches can be.

In stark contrast, there was another person in the drama, a beggar named Lazarus. From total luxury behind the gate to abject poverty at the gate. He was a man without a penny to his name. His back wasn’t covered with fine linen. No, his back was covered with sores. His body bore testimony to his extreme suffering. Unlike the rich man who feasted sumptuously every day, this man was on the edge of starvation every day. Presumably, somebody with compassion, or perhaps frustration that he was in their neighborhood, brought Lazarus near the gate of the wealthy man with the hope that somehow if he begged close to such plenteous wealth, crumbs from the garbage could fall in his direction and keep him alive.

Moreover, Jesus said, “The dogs came and licked his sores.” Dogs were not household pets. They were feral creatures, wild and despised. A dog was one of the worst things you could be called. The image Jesus gave of Lazarus was that this unclean, despicable animal was coming to the poor man, not to give canine mercy, but to enjoy his desires in licking the sores of the beggar.

So, the contrast in life is extreme. The rich man has family, friends, wealth, lifestyle, feasting, splendor, and honor – needs nothing; the poor man alone, rags, disabled, sores, repulsive, hungry, humiliated. The rich man would have disdained the poor man. And that’s the implication here because he would have thought this man is what he is because he’s been cursed by God. He would have no interest in him whatsoever. In fact, he would say to himself, “If I do anything for the man, I might be acting against the will of God who has cursed him, because he’s so wretched.” So, he offers no hope, he offers no compassion, and he offers no mercy. And the man who’s been thrown down at the gate and can’t move himself just lies there.

Before we move to their deaths, I want you to notice something extremely important. (This is where it’s helpful to have your [own] copy of the Bible.) Notice verse 14, which wasn’t part of our text. Just before our parable, Jesus is giving another parable about money and this is what Luke writes, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed [Jesus].” Now, why do I point that out? Because, in our present parable, who would the Pharisees identify with? (The rich man.) That’s important for the direction the parable takes.

You see, the theology of the day ran something like this. If you were rich and blessed with material treasures, then God loved you, God favored you, and God’s blessing was upon you. Conversely, if you were poor and needy and sick, then God hated you, God was punishing you, and God’s curse was upon you. This kind of thinking is on full display in the Book of Job. That was Job’s friend’s response: “Job, buddy, you must have some sin in your life, otherwise these things wouldn’t be happening to you. Repent of your sin and all of this will go away.” Or maybe you remember Jesus and His disciples encountering a man who’d been born blind, and the disciples said, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). That’s the thinking of many people hearing Jesus tell this parable, particularly the Pharisees. And, sadly, it’s the theology of those who preach and follow the false prosperity gospel – that God wants His people to always be healthy and wealthy. This parable upsets that kind of theology.

That’s their lives. Now, let’s consider their deaths.

Their Deaths

As the text continues, we read that the beggar died. You’d think that the rest of the account would be that the public officials came and unceremoniously put his corpse in a cart, drove it off to Gehenna, the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem, and threw it in the flames, but that’s not the story as Jesus told it. It wasn’t the coroner, but rather a band of angels who scooped up Lazarus and carried him to the bosom of Abraham.

No wonder the slaves in our country in its earlier years would sing:

Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home.
I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
A band of angels coming after me.

That is good theology. Imagine it: the beggar died and woke up, not by the garbage can of the rich man, but rather in the arms of the angels carrying him to the most honored place in heaven, to the bosom of Father Abraham. This is just beyond shocking. The Jewish people who were listening to this, certainly Pharisees, would’ve gagged immediately; they would’ve choked. They wouldn’t be able to accept the fact that such a wretched, vile person under such a curse would stand beside Abraham, the father of the faith, the father of Israel, the father of the faithful, the greatest of all Jews, the first Jew, the one who started the entire race. This wretched beggar is standing next to Abraham?

Jesus said that the rich man also died. He didn’t say a word about angels. No mention of Abraham, simply that he was buried. Not only did his body go into the ground, but he seemingly immediately recognized he was in hell, in Hades.

I heard about a man who was driving his car and got into an accident. He hit a big Shell gas station sign. He hit it and he was rendered unconscious. Well, when he woke up, he looked up, and the ‘S’ had been knocked off the sign. He rubbed his eyes and read the sign: “Hell Open 24 Hours.”

Humor aside, the rich man was conscious in hell. Jesus said, “And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus at his side.” We’re told in verse twenty-four, “Then he cried.” What was it that Jesus would say about the outer darkness? There was weeping and gnashing of teeth. This man who lived sumptuously every day was now crying and, I assume, sobbing. He’s very conscious of his surroundings. He knows he’s there. And he knows he’s there forever because he doesn’t ask to be given a release. He doesn’t say, “Get me out of here.” All he can say is, “Have mercy on me.” He knew he was where he was going to be forever.

Their lives, their deaths, and now life after death.

Their Lives After Death

The rich man said, “I’m tormented in this flame.” Abraham answered him, “Son,” which suggests that the rich man in hell was a Jew, like he would be describing a church member today. “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.” The implication is: “What you’re experiencing is justice. You want mercy, but what you have is justice.”

Then it got worse. Abraham said: “And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” Jesus was telling us that there is an unbridgeable chasm between heaven and hell; a chasm so wide you cannot go around it and so deep you cannot go under it. There’s no power on earth or in hell such that, once you are there, you can escape and reach heaven. There’s no bridge between heaven and hell. The chasm represents the fixed and permanent position of hell. If you’re there, you’re there forever. There are almost certainly some hearing me right now who will be there when they die unless they confess their sin and receive God’s gift of grace and forgiveness in Christ Jesus. If you had any understanding of the reality of hell, you would crawl on broken glass to the cross, to the only One who can bring you safely home for eternity.

The rich man, hearing the dreadful words that no one can pass between heaven and hell, started to beg. How interesting that at the beginning of this parable, Lazarus was the beggar; now the rich man is doing the begging: “I beg you therefore, father, that if you won’t or can’t send Lazarus here to me, please send him to my father’s house. I have five brothers who are still alive, and I don’t want them to come here. I miss them. We’ve had our differences, but I wouldn’t wish this place on anybody, certainly not my brothers. I beg you to send Lazarus, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.”

Abraham responded: “You want me to send Lazarus? Don’t they have Moses and the prophets? Hasn’t God given them all the information they will ever need to escape this place?” If this parable had been given by Paul, he would’ve said: “They have Moses. They have the prophets. They have Jesus. If they’re not going to believe Jesus, why do you think they’ll believe a beggar who comes back from the dead?” The rich man said: “No, Father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”

If the parable ended there, I would probably agree. If somebody walked into this church this morning and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I died last year, and for the last twelve months I’ve been in hell. Let me tell you about it. I don’t want you to go there. Please listen to the Word of God. Flee to Jesus, and put your trust in Him. For God’s sake, don’t go where I’ve been.” Would you believe him? You would think you would believe. It would certainly get my attention if I knew the person had come back from hell. I would think that would be enough to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt, but Abraham’s response was different.

Abraham said, “If they don’t hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.” Truer words have never been spoken. There is One who, in His death on the cross, showed up in hell – the Lord Jesus Christ – and He declared His triumph over the demons; and He came back from hell and was raised from the dead. And yet, people refuse to believe. Scripture is the only thing that gives us the truth that allows us to escape hell and enter heaven. The only way we can escape hell is simply stated in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

If there is a hell, and there is, it makes all the difference in the world for you, for everyone you know, and for everyone you love. May we listen to this most terrifying of Jesus’ parables and let it pierce our souls and hearts. May our concern for the lost, for the unsaved, for the unredeemed weigh heavily on our hearts, because when they die, it is too late.

“Sooner or later, Lord, when we come to Your Word, we have to face the harsh reality of eternal punishment. If we have any love in our hearts, if we have any compassion, if we have any tender-heartedness, if we have any mercy, if we have any lovingkindness, if we have any care for souls, we have to talk about this. Lord, I pray that there will be some, even in this hour today, who will fall down and worship You, and cry out for forgiveness and salvation from sin and hell. Father, help us to be bold, help us to be gracious, help us to be fully devoted to Christ so that others might come to know You as their only hope for eternal life in heaven. We offer this prayer in the name of Him who went to the cross. Amen.”

Parables: The Loving Father (Pt. 2) – Luke 15:11-32

• June 24, 2024
• Pastor
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Luke 15:11-32

If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, let me invite you to turn with me to Luke 15. So, we’ve started a new series on the parables of Jesus, and we’re in week two of the parable of The Loving Father, also known as the parable of The Prodigal Son.

I imagine somebody out there thinking, “Pastor, why are you calling it the parable of The Loving Father instead of The Prodigal Son?” Good question, and here’s my response. First, don’t worry so much about the title as much as knowing the story and the truths about our gracious God that are contained in the story. But second, and more directly to the question, I prefer to call it the parable of The Loving Father because He’s the focus – not the son. Calling it the parable of The Prodigal Son places too much emphasis on the rebellious son.

Think about it. The actions and attitudes of the younger son are what tend to come to most of our minds whenever we hear the phrase “prodigal son” or “prodigal child.” And rightly so, because that’s what the word “prodigal” means – lavish, reckless, foolish spending. But that’s not the focus of the story or, at least, it shouldn’t be. And that’s why I hope that looking at this story through the eyes of the father will help us reorient ourselves with the grace, mercy, and love of our heavenly Father, which is truly on display and is at the center of every person’s story.

Follow along with me as we re-read Luke 15:11-32. Again, we’ve heard the story many times before but take it in again. Listen for the details that give it meaning and life. In your imagination, see the story unfold and perhaps think about yourself in the shoes of each of the characters.

11 And [Jesus] said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 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. 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 in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

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! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ 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. 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.’ 22 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. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 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.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 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. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

“Father, we pray that this brief story from the mouth of our Savior may instruct our minds and fill our hearts and change our lives. Only You can do this. And so together we look to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

For the benefit of those who may not have been here last week or the rest of us who forgot, let me provide a very quick summary of where we are. Jesus has been doing public ministry for about three years, and part of that ministry included physical healing and other miracles such that He’s gathered a bit of a following. Part of that following are those who are genuinely interested to hear what He has to say and the miracles that He’s performing, and the other half are His enemies – the scribes and Pharisees.

They’ve determined that He’s not really the Messiah, that He’s not truly from God, because He’s not fitting their preconceived expectations. In fact, back in Luke 11, they’ve gone so far as to say that He’s really of the devil – that the only way He’s able to do the things He’s doing is by the power of Satan. And for their evidence, as exhibit one of their prosecution, they said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). Basically, “Hey, look who He hangs out with. If He were truly of God, then He wouldn’t be hanging out with the lowlifes, the nobodies, the untouchables, the sinners.” To this accusation, Jesus responds by telling three parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

In this last parable we’ve seen the shameful request of the son – to ask for his share of the inheritance before it was due. We’ve seen the father’s shameful response – to actually give his son what he requested rather than a slap across the face. We’ve seen the son’s shameful rebellion – as he travels to a distant country and squanders his money and finds himself in the pigpen. We’ve seen his shameful repentance – as he resolves to come back to his father in his ruined condition and become a servant. We’ve seen the father’s shameful reception – as he runs to his son and throws his arms around him and kisses him and shields him from the shame of the town and forgives him. We’ve seen the father’s shameful reconciliation – essentially reinstating him as a full-fledged member of the family by giving him a robe, a ring, and sandals. And all of that led to the father’s shameful rejoicing – as he threw the biggest and most elaborate party for himself (not his son). It’s the father’s idea to throw the party, and it’s because of his own joy and his own prerogative to bless the repentant sinner.

Now we come to verse 25, and there are three more shameful things here: a shameful reaction, a shameful response, and a shameful resolution. All of these involve the older son. Let’s consider the shameful reaction (verses 25-26).

Shameful Reaction

“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.” Most of us tend to see the older son as the “Christian” in the story. We tend to see him as the “good boy” – very devoted to his father, stays home, does everything that he’s supposed to do, does it the way his father wants him to do it, fits into the conventional expectations of the religious community around him, and performs admirably. That’s the way we tend to see the older brother, but not so.

It’s absolutely fascinating what Jesus does here. You’ve got to remember – the older son represents the Pharisees and scribes, the legalists. You’re sitting there listening to the story. Everything everybody has done up to now is shameful, and you’re just waiting for somebody to do what you perceive is the right thing. Now here comes somebody who will do something that the Pharisees think is the honorable thing to do. “This is our boy. This is our guy.” That’s what the Pharisees and scribes are thinking, and it’s what many of us are thinking too. But see, here’s another twist in the story.

He’s been out in the fields working – at least doing what landowners perceive to be work – sitting under a shade tree, making sure everybody else does what they need to. Overseeing is what they do. In fact, noblemen in the Middle East didn’t usually work. That was somehow beneath their dignity at a certain point. What strikes me is that the father hasn’t told him anything. The father hasn’t sent a messenger out to the field wherever he was to say, “Hey, hey, hey. Your brother’s back and we’re going to have a party. Come on in, greet your brother. Embrace your brother. Rejoice with me and help me get this party off the ground.”

In fact, last week, as she was leaving, Martha Canata caught me at the door and asked this exact question, “Why didn’t the father send somebody to go get the older brother?” And the answer is he has no relationship to the father and he has no relationship to his brother. He proved that at the beginning of the story when he didn’t try to stop his brother from doing what was terrible. He had no interest in his father. He proved that by not intervening between his brother and his father to stop his brother from such a dishonorable act toward his father.

He has no relationship to anybody in the family. Being out in the field is sort of a metaphor for where he was in terms of that family. The younger son was in a far country. This guy is in a far field. Both locations are symbolic of being far away from the father. They both come home, but to very different receptions. So, he comes and he “hears the music and the dancing,” the sumphónia and the choros, from which we get “symphony” and “chorus.” It’s a party. There’s music. There’s dancing. There’s food. It’s a celebration and it’s been going on for a while. And that gives way to his shameful reaction.

He’s stunned. He’s shocked. He’s surprised. He’s confused. But mostly, he’s suspicious, because that’s how legalists tend to react – particularly of joyful people. And so, he arrives, “And when he approached the house, he heard music and dancing,” and then it
should say, “And he rushed in to his father and said, ‘Father, what’s all the joy about?’” But he doesn’t do that. If he loved his father, he would’ve rushed into the house and said, “Father, what’s going on? Why are we celebrating?” And his father would’ve said, “Your brother is home,” and he would have embraced his father, and rejoiced with tears because he knew his father loved his brother. He knew his father had ached in his heart the entire time his brother was gone. And he knew his father had gone out to look for him day after day, wondering if his brother would ever come home. If he truly loved his father, then whatever made his father rejoice would make him rejoice. But he doesn’t really love his father. He only has love for himself. It’s all about him, and his property, and his reputation, and his prestige.

How do I know that’s his response? Because of verse 28, “But he was angry and refused to go in.” The servant gave him the report, “Your brother is back safe and sound. Your father has received him and your dad has decided to celebrate the occasion with a party.” And instead of being overjoyed, he’s angry. Why is he angry? Because, in his mind, this isn’t the way things ought to be. This isn’t the way the younger son should be received. This isn’t right. If anybody deserves a party it’s him! We’ll here him say that in a moment. That shameful reaction leads to another shameful response by the father.

Shameful Response

It’s amazing, verse 28 continues, “And his father came out and began entreating him.” Just as in the case of the younger son, where the father ran right down to the middle of town for all to see, bearing the scorn and the shame of the embarrassment to embrace the sinner and protect him from the shame, here the father leaves the festival, goes out, and does what you would never expect God to do, beg a sinner, beg a hypocrite. But God is the one who seeks to save the lost, and that’s who this father represents.

Do you remember what the traditional Middle Eastern father’s response would’ve been to the younger son’s request for his inheritance? It should’ve been a slap in the face, followed by a “How dare you speak to your father like that!” Well, that’s the same type of response that should’ve been given to this older son’s shameful reaction. But, instead, of the father ordering him to be beaten and locked in a room somewhere until he can be dealt with, the insulted dishonored father comes out and he starts begging him. He shows up in condescension. He shows up in mercy. He shows up in compassion, and love, and humility, and kindness. He leaves the party, comes out, goes into the night with everybody watching, another act of selfless love kindly toward this son in the same way that he ran to embrace the younger son. He goes out in mercy, and he reaches to the hypocrite the same way he reached to the rebel.

I want you to notice the word “entreating” there. It says that he “began entreating him.” Parakaleó, is the Greek. It’s the name that’s given to the Holy Spirit (Paraclete). It means “one who comes alongside to encourage.” The father leaves the party and comes down to his son and he pleads with him, and he calls him to come to the house, to come to the celebration.

The Pharisees and scribes should’ve seen themselves face-to-face in this older son. Oh, they were in the house. They were around. They were the religious ones. They were the dutiful ones. They were the moral ones. But they didn’t know God. They didn’t know the heart of God. They had no understanding of the joy of God. They had no interest in the recovery of lost sinners. They refused to honor God for saving grace, which has always been the way God saved.

Here’s this wonderfully compassionate grace of God reaching out to these angry hypocrites. And the response of the older son, verse 29, “He answered and said to his father, ‘Look!’” Let me stop there. Everybody watching this in their imaginations, everybody hearing Jesus tell this story for the first time would’ve taken a breath there. You would’ve heard and audible gasp in the crowd. I mean, even the prodigal came back and addressed his dad by calling him, “Father.” Why, even at the beginning, when the younger son requested his inheritance he called his dad, “Father.” You don’t address your father by saying, “Look!” There’s no title. There’s no respect.

And then he says, “For so many years I have been serving you.” Slave language, doulos is the Greek word. “For so many years I’ve been your slave.” That’s a legalist’s mentality. There’s no fun in that reply, no joy. And what it indicates is that in his heart, this guy has viewed his relationship with his father as a horrible, grit-your-teeth, grind your way through these years and years of servitude, so that when dad eventually dies, you can get what you’re after. He’s no different than the younger son. He wanted what he wanted. He just had a different way to get it. He didn’t have the courage of his younger brother. He didn’t have the moxie, the gumption, the kahunas. It’s nothing but slavery to him. Bitter, resentful, angry for so many years.

And then, if you want to know the self-image of a hypocrite, here it is. “And I have never neglected a command of yours.” Now if that isn’t the language of a self-righteous hypocrite, I don’t know what is. There’s the amazing self-deception of a hypocrite. He’s perfect. “I’m perfect, dad, and you’re not. I understand what perfection is. I understand what perfect righteousness is, and perfect justice, and I know what perfect honor is, and I know how you’re supposed to behave, and you’re in violation of it. Again, and again, you’re in violation of it. You took him back. You ran. You shamed yourself. You protected him from shame. You forgave him. You embraced him. You kissed him. You gave him full sonship. You gave him honor. You gave him authority. You gave him responsibility. You hold this massive celebration for an absolutely unworthy sinner. I’ve been the worker and I don’t even get a goat. He’s done nothing for you, and he gets the fattened calf. This isn’t fair. This isn’t equitable. This isn’t just. This isn’t righteous. I’m perfect and you’re not.”

He has no love for the father. He has no interest in the father’s love for his younger brother. He has no desire to share in his father’s joy. He has no joy in anything. But he’s still perfect and needs no repentance. How about that? What a classic illustration of a hypocrite. Angry, bitter, slave mentality. I’ve done all this to get what I expect to get. You want to know something? Nobody goes into the kingdom of God without repentance. This is classic hypocrisy. His heart is wretched. His heart is wicked. His heart is alienated. His heart is selfish. And he’s spiritually blind. That’s the Pharisees and scribes.

A shameful reaction by the older brother leads to another shameful response from the father, and that leads us to a shameful resolution.

Shameful Resolution

Verse 31, “He said to him, ‘My child, you’ve always been with me, all that is mine is yours.’” What a tender response. That would be shameful in the eyes of the villagers. They would say, “Would somebody slap this guy. I mean, enough is enough. This ‘mercy thing’ is getting out of hand. Please, stop already!” But he says, “My child,” teknon, is the Greek. Eight times, in this section, Luke uses the more formal huios, meaning “son.” But here, it’s tekna – my child. He’s speaking in grieving, painful, agonizing, compassionate love and mercy. These are endearing terms. That’s the heart of God toward a wretched hypocrite. Is there any question about God being a loving, compassionate Savior?

The son uses no title, no respect. The son attacks the virtue, the integrity, the justice, and the righteousness of the father. The son is saying in effect, “You need to be forgiven by me for the outrageous, and unjust, and dishonorable conduct that you have perpetrated.” And here you see the patience of God with the sinners, even hypocrites. And here’s the picture of the generosity of God, and the endlessness of His grace and His resources. It’s for all who come to Him. It will never be yours with your attitude. It will never be yours by works. You’ll never earn it. But it’s here if you ever want to establish a relationship with Me.

And verse 32 goes back to the main theme. “We had to be merry and rejoice.” “We had to.” It’s not like we had an option. “For this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live and was lost and has been found.” We had no choice. Why? This is what causes joy to God. This is heaven’s joy. It can’t be restrained. It can’t be delayed. It can’t be postponed. It can’t be subdued. It can’t be mitigated. It can’t be lessened. Divine joy is released when one sinner repents and is reconciled. And heaven’s joy will be released not just for a prodigal, not just for someone who’s immoral, and irreligious, and blatantly sinful; but for secret sinners, rebels, the religious, the moral, the hypocrites, the ones whose lawlessness is all on the inside.

God is saying here, Christ is saying, “I go out into the street for the prodigal, and I go out into the courtyard for you. I humble Myself and take on public shame for the prodigal. And I humble Myself and take on public shame for you. I come with compassion, and love, and forgiveness, and I’m ready to embrace you, and to kiss you, and to give you full sonship with all its privileges, not just if you’re the prodigal, but even if you’re the hypocrite.”

He’s really inviting him to salvation. You can come to the party if you choose, if you recognize your true spiritual condition. If you come home, you can take possession of everything that’s always been there. The younger son was overwhelmed with his father’s grace. Immediately confessed his sin, confessed his unworthiness in the very most magnanimous ways, and he received instantaneous
forgiveness, reconciliation, sonship, all the rights and privileges that the father had at his disposal to give. He entered into the celebration of the father’s joy, that is eternal salvation. The older son, the same tenderness, the same kindness, the same mercy, offered the same grace, reacts with bitter resentment, attacks the virtue, the integrity of the father.

And it stops in verse 32, isn’t that strange? What do you have hanging in your mind right now? Do you have a question there? I do. What happened? Right? What did he do? You’re in the crowd hearing Jesus tell this story and it just ends, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” (THE END.) Nah?! The guests are all there. They’re waiting. They know what’s going on outside because the word is coming in. What did he do? Did he repent? Did he humble himself and fall down before the father and seek grace for his hypocrisy and bitter service? Was he forgiven, and reconciled? I’m sure they’d love to see the father come in with his arm around his son, bringing him to the head table, and sitting him next to his brother. Wouldn’t that be great?

But you know what? I don’t get to write the end. Who wrote the end? The Pharisees wrote the end. Here’s the end they wrote. “And the older son being outraged at his father, picked up a piece of wood and beat him to death in front of everyone.” That’s the ending they wrote. That’s the cross. And that’s what they did just a few months after this. And, by the way, congratulated themselves on their righteous act that preserved the honor of Israel, and Judaism, and true religion, and God.

A shameless reaction by the older brother leads to another shameful response of grace, mercy, and love from the father, concluding with a shameful reconciliation – it’s all available, the glories and benefits of heaven are open wide to everyone who repents and believes.

Parables: The Loving Father (Pt. 1) – Luke 15:11-32

• June 18, 2024
• Pastor
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Luke 15:11-32

As you can tell, we’re starting a new sermon series today. Over the summer months, we’ll be looking at several of the parables of Jesus, and this morning, we’re starting with one often referred to as the parable of The Prodigal Son. However, because it’s Father’s Day today, I want us to see it as the parable of The Loving Father. So, if you have your copy of God’s Word (and I hope you do), let me invite you to turn with me to Luke 15.

Now, before we look at the story, we need to have some background to know where we are. Christ is on His way to Jerusalem – the last months of His life. He intends to offer Himself as God’s perfect sacrifice for sin, die on the cross, and then, on the following Sunday, rise again from the dead, having accomplished our redemption. He’s ministered now for nearly three years preached the message of the kingdom of God and of repentance, and has been calling men and women to faith in Him as the Messiah and the Lord God.

And He’s also developed a few enemies along the way – primarily the Scribes and Pharisees. They’re basically the architects of the popular religion of Judaism at the time. They’re the primary influencing force among the Jewish population. They’re legalistic. They’re inwardly corrupt. They’re hypocritical. They’re hostile to Jesus. And yet they have the most influence among the people. And one of the ways that they leveraged this influence was to poison the minds of the people by saying Jesus was only able to do the things He did and speak with authority because He was of the devil – that He did what He did by the power of Satan. And in order to bolster the lie they highlighted the types of people that Jesus hung out with. “Hey, look at who Jesus associates. He doesn’t associate with God’s people. He associates with the devil’s people. He associates with tax collectors, prostitutes, criminals. Let’s face it; He hangs out with sinners.”

And so that’s the occasion that precipitates the stories that Jesus tells in Luke 15. In verse 1 it says, “All the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.” Now, this sets off an answer from the Lord. And the answer is pretty simple. “The reason I associate with these sinners is because I have come to seek and to save that which is lost (Luke 19:10). I do this because it’s the Father’s joy. It’s God’s joy to save lost sinners.”

And He goes on to tell a story about a shepherd who had 100 sheep, and he lost one, and went and found it, brought the sheep back. And says, “What is the point of the story?” Verse 7, “I tell you in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.” And that’s a sarcastic rebuke of the Pharisees themselves who thought they were righteous and needed no repentance. Heaven has no joy in you. Heaven’s joy is in the recovery of lost sinners who repent.

And then He told a second story about a woman who had ten silver coins, and lost one, and went on a search until it was found. And again, in verse 10, “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” What He’s saying is this, “You’re so far from God, you don’t even understand what makes God have joy. You don’t understand what causes God to be content, satisfied, and joyful. It’s the recovery of sinners. You’re so far from knowing God.” And that, of course, then leads to the third story, which is the main parable.

11 And [Jesus] said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 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. 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 in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

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! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ 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. 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.’ 22 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. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 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.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 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. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

“Father, with our Bibles open before us, we want to ask You to speak to us. It would be a dreadful waste of time to come and hear the voice of a man bouncing around the room. Only You can do this. Only You can give salvation. Only You can open our dim eyes and our plugged ears. Only You can take the voice of a mere man and use it to speak the very word of God into our lives. So, we look to You for grace and help in these moments. For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson (both) said this was the greatest short story that was ever told – and that compliment comes from two gentlemen who could spin a fair yarn themselves. But, in order for us to appreciate it in all of its richness and grasp the basic truths it conveys, it’s really critical for us to remember that the Bible is a Middle-Eastern book. Sometimes we forget that. We open the Scriptures and we read English words and we encounter people, places and things that are familiar in our own culture, and we often fail to remember that the truths found in the Bible are set in a culture that is very distant from our own.

We live in the western world, some 2,000 years after this story was originally told. There are nuances, there are subtleties, there are cultural attitudes and features here that give this parable its full meaning. For example, there were, in the minds of the people hearing Jesus tell this story, ingrained ideas, ingrained cultural attitudes, ingrained patterns, unspoken feelings and sensibilities that existed in Middle-Eastern peasant village life. These are the things that illuminate the story. These are the things that make it live. And these are the things that will allow us to experience God in it.

If we want to grasp the mastery of this great story and all its spiritual meaning, we’ve got to go back and do the best we can to put ourselves in that very place and time. We need to place ourselves in the attitudes and expectations of a Middle-Eastern peasant village. Then, perhaps we can join Dickens and Emerson in their supreme compliment of this parable from Jesus and find the richness of this story being illuminated to our minds.

Shameful Request

Jesus said, “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’” This is an absolutely outrageous statement. He’s utterly disrespectful toward his father. He lacks any love for his father whatsoever. There isn’t an ounce of gratitude in his heart for the legacy that generations of his family have provided. In fact, the truth of the matter is for a son to say that in the sensibilities of the ancient Middle East in village life would be tantamount to saying, “Dad, you’re in the way of my plans. You’re a barrier. I want my freedom, I want my fulfillment, and I want out of this family. I’ve got other plans. They don’t involve you. They don’t involve this family. They don’t involve this estate. They don’t involve this village. I want nothing to do with any of you. I want my inheritance now. Dad, I wish you were dead.”

There’s so much more that could be said here, but what I want us to understand is that in a normal Middle-Eastern, Jewish family, the father’s response would’ve been to slap his son across the face, followed by public shaming and humiliation, and maybe even being cut off from the family. That’s what everyone was expecting. But rather than strike him across the face for his disrespect, what does the father do? He grants the request. He extends to his son the freedom he desires because the father is willing to endure the agony of rejected love. Do you see how this father looks more and more like our heavenly father? This is God. This is God giving the sinner his freedom. So, number one is the shameful request.

Shameful Rebellion

Number two is the shameful rebellion. Look at 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 in reckless living.” He’s waited long enough. He’s sick of being in the father’s presence. He’s sick of having any accountability or relationship with the family.

He takes his inheritance and he turns it into cash. He liquidates everything: land, animals, equipment, all of it gets sold in a quick sale. This is the foolishness of the sinner. He wants to get away from God. He wants no accountability to God. He sells all of the opportunities that God has provided for him, all the good gifts, all the gospel opportunities, everything that’s good that God has put into his world. All the goodness and forbearance of God that’s meant to lead him into a relationship with God is spurned and once he gets his cash he travels to a distant country and squanders everything.

The young son represents open sinners, open rebellion, the dissolute, the decadent, the degenerate, the debauched, the immoral, those who make no pretense of faith in God, no pretense of love for God. This is those in verse 1: the tax collectors, the sinners, the outcasts, the
irreligious. They run as far as they can from God because they have no love for Him and no relationship with Him. They don’t want anything to do with His law, or His rule. They don’t want any accountability to Him whatsoever. They don’t darken the door of the church. They’re not interested in exposing themselves to anybody’s expectations. But sin never works out the way it looks.

Verse 14 says, “that after he had spent everything, a famine arose and then he was really bad off, so he hired himself out as a laborer and worked with pigs” (paraphrased). But it’s actually worse than that. Verse 16 says that “he long[ed] to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.” From a wonderful place under a loving father in a generous environment, to the pig pen in a distant country longing to eat the very slop he’s feeding the pigs. It’s life at its lowest. He has no family. He has nobody left. He’s in a foreign land, nowhere to turn. All his resources are gone. He’s destitute, penniless, and alone. The great irony is that this Jewish son is now a pig – shameful rebellion.

Shameful Repentance

Verse 17 begins where all genuine repentance begins, “But when he came to himself…” The NIV says, “when he came to his senses…” This is where repentance really begins. All repentance begins with an honest assessment of one’s condition of destitution, helplessness, no resources, and impending death. And so, he thinks about his father and how many of his father’s hired men have more than enough bread while he’s dying of hunger.

Notice that this man’s honest assessment of his condition begins to highlight the generosity of his father. His father’s hired men don’t just have enough to get by on, they have more than enough. His father was loving. His father was good. His father was kind. His father was generous. He knows his father well enough to know that he’s a merciful man, that he’s a generous man, and that he’s a forgiving man. He doesn’t know anybody else like that. He doesn’t know anywhere to turn to. But he knows his father is not vengeful. He knows his father is merciful and generous.

He’s broken. He’s alone. He’s sad. He’s penitent. He has nowhere to go. And he believes in his father. This is a picture of the one whose repentance leads to salvation because, you see not only repentance here but faith in his father. He trusts in his father’s goodness, compassion, generosity and mercy. Repentance is linked to faith. His sensible thinking then moves his will. This is how repentance works. First of all, the sinner comes to himself, comes to his senses, begins to really look and assess where he is and where he’s headed to the inevitable death and destruction and eternal damnation. It’s humbling. It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful. But it’s genuine.

And how do we know this guy’s repentance is genuine? Because of what he says in verses 18-19, “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.” This is the stuff of real repentance – holding nothing back, no excuses, no one to blame but himself. I rebelled. I disobeyed. I wasted my life. I dishonored my father. My sins rise to the very presence of God they stack so high. And so true penitence matched with true trust in a father’s love and forgiveness starts the sinner back.

A shameful request, a shameful rebellion, and a shameful repentance lead to a shameful reception. Now that might sound strange, but hold on and you’ll understand what I mean.

Shameful Reception

Verse 20, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” The reason I call this a shameful reception is because the normal Middle-Eastern, Jewish reception would’ve been the opposite of this. The father would’ve refused to receive him. He would make the son sit outside the house or outside the village in public view. The townspeople would come and heap scorn upon him. And when the father did let him in, it would be a very cool reception, and he would be required to bow low and kiss the father’s feet. Then the father would set out the requirements and mandates for what needed to be done in order to be considered for reconciliation. It was work-based reconciliation. But that’s not what happened, and that’s why I call it a shameful reception.

What happens is that the father sees him. The father has been looking and longing for his son to return. God looks for us, too. He’s a Father who seeks and saves the lost. And the father in this story is a picture of our great God. He sees his son while he’s still a long way off. And he felt compassion. And this compassion moved him to run. Middle-Eastern Jewish fathers and noblemen didn’t run. You just didn’t do it. It’s like growing up in SC, you just don’t drink unsweet tea. And yet, this father runs. He sprints as fast as he can so that he can reach his son before he gets to the town. He wants to shield his son from the shame that’s bound to come. He takes the scorn, and the mockery, and the slander so that his son doesn’t have to bear it.

And then, when he finally gets there, even more shockingly, he embraced him, literally “fell on his neck,” just collapsed in a massive hug, buried his head on the neck of his son, stinking and dirty and ragged as he was. Everybody now knows how much that father loves that son. So much that he takes his shame, that he empties himself of any pride, of any rights, of any honor, and in a self-emptying display of love brings shame on himself in order to throw his arms around that returning sinner and protect him from being shamed by anyone else. So that, by the time the boy walked into the village, he was a fully reconciled son.

You want to know how eager God is to receive a sinner? He’ll run through the dirt and bear the shame. He’ll embrace the sinner with all His strength and plant kisses all over the sinner’s head. That father is doing exactly what Jesus did. He came down into our village to run the gauntlet, and bear the shame, and the slander, and the mockery, to throw His arms around us, and kiss us, and reconcile with us. And all of this happened without any (what?) – works. That’s the shock. It was all grace, and the next verse confirms it for us.

Notice the son’s speech in verse 21, “‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’” You say, “Yeah, what’s the big deal?” Notice the part of his previously planned speech that he left out. Look back at verse 19. What did he leave out? “Make me as one of your hired men.” Why did he leave that out? Because there’s no need for works. He’s just received grace. The father is so eager, he receives, and embraces, and reconciles with the son before the son can say anything. Full repentance, full faith, and full grace – no works. Why? Because he’s already been received as a son. He’s already been forgiven. He’s already received mercy. He’s already been reconciled. His repentance is real. His faith is true. And his father responds with complete forgiveness and reconciliation.

A shameful request, a shameful rebellion, a shameful repentance, and a shameful reception leads to a shameful reconciliation, and this is where we’ll end today.

Shameful Reconciliation

Let’s look at verse 22, “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.’” Here, again, the eyes roll. The father has no shame. He did a shameful run, and now he shamelessly heaps blessing on this reconciled son. They wouldn’t understand this at all, just absolutely mind boggling that a father wouldn’t be more protective of his own honor. He gives him three things: a robe, a ring, and sandals.

A robe to replace the nasty pig stained garments he’s wearing. And not just any robe, but the best robe. Every nobleman has one. You probably have something like this in your closet: a tux, a special three-piece suit, ladies, a super-nice evening gown. Well, that’s what he calls for. And a ring, but not just any ring, a ring with the family crest on it. A ring that indicates authority. The ring that was used to seal important documents by stamping it in melted wax. And the hired men went barefoot and servants went barefoot and only masters and sons wore shoes, sandals. They understand what he’s saying. This is the full honor of sonship.

No father would ever do that. But see, they don’t understand that God’s honor comes in His loving grace and forgiveness. All they know about God is His works and law. He came in stinking. He came in rags. He came unclean. And nobody’s ever going to see him that way again. That’s the picture. He came with nothing. He didn’t come with a suitcase. He came in his own stinking clothing. He had nothing. That’s how the sinner comes. That’s how we all come because God justifies the ungodly – those with nothing, those who are just wretched and nothing else.

There’s no waiting period here. There’s no test period. There’s no reentry time. There’s no limit on the privileges. This is full-blown sonship at the highest level. And it comes swiftly. All of this should have gone to the older son. Sandals on his feet, a sign that he’s the master now. He’s not a hired man. He’s not even a slave. He’s the master. He has authority. He has honor. He has responsibility. He has respect. He’s a fully-vested son who can act in the place of his father, and who has a right to access all the family treasures. Wow!

What’s the message here? Grace triumphs over sin at its worst. The story isn’t saying that every sinner reaches the level he did, but when sinners do, grace still triumphs. This is a completely new idea. Undeserved forgiveness, undeserved sonship, undeserved salvation, undeserved honor, respect, responsibility, fully vested son without any restitution, without any works. This kind of lavish love, this kind of grace bestowed upon a penitent, trusting sinner is a bizarre idea in a legalistic mind.

And then the attention focuses from the son to the father. And there’s a shameful rejoicing, verse 23.

Shameful Rejoicing

The father holds nothing back. He knows no shame. He calls for a party to end all parties. “‘Bring the fattened calf, kill it, let’s eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead, has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.” This is the biggest event that has ever happened in the history of the family or the village from the perspective of the father. And here we have a picture of heaven, don’t we, rejoicing. Just one lost sinner comes home and God puts on a mega feast. Bring that fattened calf, that corn-fed prime veal, kill it, and let’s celebrate. If you’re going to celebrate, celebrate the redemptive work of God.

This is not so much the celebration of the son. This is the celebration of the father. The feast honors the father. It honors the father for what he’s done. It’s the father who gave him back his life. It’s the father who made him a son. It’s the father who restored him to blessing by merciful forgiveness and gracious love. And the whole village comes to rejoice with this shameless father who celebrates his own grace and his own mercy.

This father has exhibited unheard of kindness, unheard of goodness, sacrificial love, sacrificial grace. The son who was dead. He was lost but now is found. The son has new life, new status, and new attitude. For the first time, he has a real relationship with a loving, forgiving father, who has made him heir of everything he possesses, to whom he has been reconciled, and to whom he will eagerly give his love, and his service in response.

The son entrusts his life to the father and the father entrusts his resources to the son. The son is finally home. He’s in the father’s house. He’s in the family. He has full access to all the riches of the father. And he joins with everyone in celebrating the greatness of this event.

I love it, it says at the end of verse 24, “They began to be merry.” Because this party never ends. That’s what heaven is all about. It’s the endless celebration of the grace of a loving Father to penitent, believing sinners. That’s what eternity is. Heaven’s joy will never end when a sinner comes home.

A shameful request becomes a shameful rebellion. That shameful rebellion leads to a shameful repentance, which leads to a shameful reception, a shameful reconciliation, and the most marvelous and shameful rejoicing all of which frames our Savior – the Lord Jesus Christ – who is such a gracious and loving Father. Let us pray.

“Father, thank You for the truth embedded in this great story. Thank You for how enriching it is to us, and what it tells us about You. We see You in a fresh way. It’s so incarnational. It’s so real. We love You. Thank You for being the God You are. We praise You. We’ll be there at the party, celebrating such a reconciling God who is in the end honored by being willing to bear our shame. Thank You, Lord, for a great morning and a wonderful time of worship. We are overjoyed as we think about and celebrate our fathers today, not because they are perfect but because this day reminds us of You our gracious and loving Father. It’s in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.”

Jude: Words of Praise & Glory – Jude 1:24-25

• June 10, 2024
• Pastor
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Jude 1:24-25

So, let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn one final time to the little epistle of Jude. We’ve been studying this tiny 25-verse letter for about eight weeks now and we’re here this morning, at the end of the journey. Jude, you remember, was not one of the twelve but was a child of Joseph and Mary and therefore a half-brother of Jesus Himself. He was used by God and inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this important epistle. And the conclusion is, in some ways, the high point of all of it. Let me read the final two verses:

24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

“Father, with our Bibles open, we ask that You grant us the enabling of the Holy Spirit to speak and hear and understand, to believe and obey and walk in the pathway of Your choosing. So, accomplish Your purposes in us, we pray. In Christ’s name. Amen.”

If I asked you what the most important truth in the whole realm of salvation was, what would you say? Which doctrine, would you say, is most crucial in the amazing, profound, blessed, and gracious mixture of doctrines that make up soteriology? (Soteriology is just the fancy theologian’s term for the study of our salvation.) Which part of God’s saving promise is most encouraging, most satisfying, most attractive, and most comforting to you?

Now, of course, all the doctrines of salvation are necessary and all the doctrines of salvation are precious. But one of them stands out as the most attractive of all, the most valuable of all. Of course, to some degree, this is a subjective question because the Bible doesn’t explicitly answer it for us but I believe the answer is eternal security, otherwise known as – and perhaps more accurately known as – the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Perseverance of the saints is that biblical truth that says once you’re saved, then you’re saved forever. Or to put it in the negative sense, if you’ve received eternal life, then you can never lose it. Now, I’m not diminishing the glories of the doctrine of justification. I’m not diminishing the glories of the doctrine of regeneration. I’m not diminishing the glories of the doctrine of conversion or adoption or reconciliation or redemption or ransom.

But I’ll tell you this; all those doctrines would be diminished, to some degree or another, if salvation was not forever. Take the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints away and all those other doctrines are depreciated. Take that doctrine away and your joy, confidence, assurance, rest, comfort, and hope are significantly downgraded and justifiably replaced with doubt, fear, anxiety, and worry.

The call to salvation is so demanding, so all-consuming that it involves the total commitment of everything I have to Christ. It’s an abandonment of all my efforts. It’s the end of me and I yield up everything to Christ. I come empty-handed. As the old hymn says, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling” (Rock of Ages, Augustus Toplady). Having given up all that to be forgiven, having given up all that to be rescued from hell, having given up all that to receive the promise of heaven, only to be told that this deal comes without a guarantee is the epitome of hopelessness?

“You’re asking a lot out of me, Jesus. You mean to tell me that if I give myself up totally to You to be my Lord and Master, then You might not keep me? You might not hold onto me? You’re telling me there’s no assurance that I’m going to make it to heaven?” That makes it even more difficult, if not almost impossible, to make this level of commitment. That’s huge.

And believe me, there are many Christians who come from church backgrounds or are presently attending churches that espouse this. The theology in those churches would run something like this, “Yes, you’re saved by grace, but your salvation is ultimately up to you to maintain, and if you don’t do enough, or you do the wrong things, then you might just lose it, you might just end up in hell even though you repented of your sin and confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” To that I say (and the Bible says), if the Lord can’t hold onto me, I have no hope. If salvation isn’t God’s work, then I’m not going to get there. If it’s not His work, and He doesn’t hold me, and He doesn’t keep me, and He doesn’t preserve me, I won’t make it. I can’t save myself. If He doesn’t sanctify me, I can’t sanctify myself. And if He doesn’t glorify me, I can’t glorify myself. If He doesn’t keep me, I can’t keep myself. I’m not good enough to save myself, and I’m certainly not good enough to keep myself. I will never be worthy of salvation. I wasn’t in the past, and I’m not now.

Let me put it another way. If you could lose your salvation, you would. If any part of my eternal salvation depends upon my power, and my ability, and my commitment, and my righteousness, then I won’t get there and neither will you. You have no capacity to save yourself (spiritually) and you have no capacity to keep yourself saved. You’re still fallen. I’m still fallen. I still have unredeemed human flesh. I’m prone to sin. I’m prone to doubt. I’m prone to unbelief. I’m prone to rebellion. I’m prone to pride. Frankly, I fall to those things, as we all do, and all sorts of accusations could be successfully brought against me.

Satan could go to God’s throne and lay out a formidable and increasingly longer list of the sins of Lee Norris. And the longer I live, the longer the list gets. All kinds of accusations could be brought against me by God Himself, who knows everything. All sorts of accusations could be brought against me by Christ. Every conceivable accusation could be brought against me by the Holy Spirit, who lives within me. And all kinds of accusations could be drawn out on a list that are brought to my attention by my own conscience.

And, frankly, the accumulated list would be horrific – and so would yours. For every one of us, there is a staggering list of indictments. There is a staggering list of disqualifications. We continue to violate God’s law. We continue to be idolatrous. We continue to be wicked. And believe me, the list is sufficient to condemn us all. If we can lose our salvation, then the purpose of God is thwarted, the power of God is diminished, and the plan of God is contingent. We would have to redefine election. We would have to redefine justification, sanctification, and glorification. It turns the entire gospel on its head. And like so many matters in life, it’s the guarantee that seals the deal.

“Gee, Pastor. Thanks a lot for this uplifting sermon. I mean, this is why people don’t want to come to church. They don’t want to be beat up on.” No, there’s a reason why we’re starting here. First, it’s true and biblical. Second, it’s only when we have a correct view of our sinfulness, as compared to God’s grace in redeeming any of us that we are brought to a place of praise and worship. Those who are keenly aware of their sin in light of God’s amazing grace are the ones who smile the most, sing the loudest, clap their hands, and want everyone to know about Jesus. Just talk to our Kairos Prison Ministry Volunteers or those who serve meals to the homeless at Slater Baptist or volunteer at Piedmont Women’s Center or Miracle Hill or Starlight at Tamassee.

And that’s precisely what happens to Jude. After instructing us to be vigilant and to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, he finally bursts forth in praise to the only God, the only Savior who, through Jesus Christ our Lord, is to receive all honor, and all glory, and all majesty, and all dominion, and all authority forever, because He’s the One who is able to keep us and make us stand in His presence. So, we end by considering praise, preservation, and presentation.

Praise

The word “doxology” is a combination of the Greek words doxa and logos – doxa meaning “glory” or “praise” and logos meaning “word.” So, technically speaking a doxology is glory words or praise words. We’d clean it up and call a doxology “words of praise and glory,” and the Bible is filled with them. Each of the five books of Psalms – the 150 Psalms are divided into five books. At the end of each of the five books is a doxology (Psalm 41:13; 72:18-19; 89:52; 106:48; and the entirety of Psalm 150). So, the songbook of the redeemed was punctuated with responses of praise for God’s glorious work among His people. Not to mention David’s magnificent doxology in 1 Chronicles 29:10-13:

“Blessed are You, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and You are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all. In Your hand are power and might, and in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank You, our God, and praise Your glorious name.”

And what about the New Testament? Angels sang a doxology at Christ’s birth, remember? “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14)! On Palm Sunday, the crowd gave a doxology at Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem when they hailed Him as Messiah. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Luke 19:38)!

The New Testament is filled with doxologies. And none of them ever deal with mundane matters. They always deal with salvation. They’re words of grateful praise to God for saving sinners. Beloved, doxology is a foretaste of heaven. That’s what we’re going to spend forever doing – declaring doxology – ascribing glory and honor and majesty and power and dominion and authority to our great God.

In Galatians 1:3-5, Paul can’t even get past his introduction without saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us out of this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.” You find this kind of spontaneous Holy Spirit-energized doxology all throughout the New Testament.

I love the one at the end of the Epistle to the Romans where Paul says “Now, to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages but is now manifest and by the Scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to obedience of faith, to the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever. Amen” (16:25-27). And that’s how Paul doxologizes the end of the great Roman letter.

Writing his wonderful first epistle to Timothy, Paul says “Now, to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17, NIV). And what’s he saying that for? Where is it coming from? “Because I, the chief of sinners, foremost of all, found mercy” (1 Timothy 1:15, paraphrased).

Paul, writing at the close of his life, the last few strokes of his pen, says, “The Lord will deliver me from every evil deed and bring me safely to His heavenly Kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Timothy 4:18). Paul knew he was secure. Doxology. Praise. Glory. And Jude does the same thing. He bursts into a doxology that calms our fears, and fuels our hopes, and gives us joy. And the first reason that Jude gives us for these mighty words of praise and glory is preservation.

Preservation

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling…” It’s a present active participle. It’s not “Him who was able.” It’s not “Him who used to be able.” And it’s not even the future, “Him who will be able.” It’s the present active participle “Him who IS able.” In any moment that you call “now,” God is able. The Greek word is dunamai. It’s the word from which we get the English “dynamite.” It means “to be able,” or “to have power.” Have you noticed the references to God’s power in Jude? Back in verses 5-7, Jude reminds us that our God delivered Israel from Egypt, He took the fallen angels and locked them up until the day of judgment, and He has the power to take Sodom and Gomorrah and overthrow it in a minute. God has done in a minute what Putin has failed to do in over 2.5 years. Our God is able.

And the New Testament is loaded with testimonies to the power of God. Listen to 2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” Wow! So, where sin abounds, grace does what? (Abounds all the more – Romans 5:20.) He is able to supply all the grace that’s needed to cover every sin.

Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Here’s another doxology right in the middle of a letter by Paul, and he bursts into doxology because he comprehends that God is able. Able to do what? (Keep us…)

It’s a military word – “to guard or watch over” – different from the word used back in verse 21, “keep yourselves in the love of God.” That word means “to hold or to possess.” This word means God is able to guard us. He’s at His post. We’re in safe custody while under assault; that’s what that word means. He keeps us from aptaistos, “falling, stumbling.” It’s the only place in the Bible where that word is used. He keeps us from apostasy. You can’t fall away because He keeps you from becoming an apostate. How does He do it? By the gift of a permanent faith, a new heart, and the indwelling Holy Spirit. He hangs onto us.

We know this because of so many testimonies in Scripture. I go back to John 10:28, “I gave eternal life to them and they shall never perish.” Does that seem to say it? “And no one shall snatch them out of My hand,” Jesus said. “My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Jesus says, “I won’t let go, the Father won’t let go, and no one is powerful to force us to release anyone.” That’s why Philippians 1:6 says, “He that begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Our Lord has the will and the power to preserve us.

Presentation

Secondly, to present us. This is just incredible. “Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy.” In the Greek, it’s “to set you or to present you.” Right now, we stand in grace (Romans 5:1-2,) but then we’ll stand in glory. This is the opposite of falling; this is standing. This is enduring to the end. This is the perseverance of the saints. True believers have been given a faith that endures. “And He who keeps us will set us in the presence of His glory.”

Back up a couple of pages into 1 John 2:19. This is a very important verse because, you say, “I know people who went to church and I know people that confessed Christ and they’re no longer around and now they deny Him.” Here’s what explains that. “They went out from us, they were not really of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out in order that it might be shown that they all are not all of us” (1 John 2:19). When somebody leaves and falls away, abandons the faith, they were never true believers in the first place.

Ah, verse 20, “But you, you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I haven’t written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it.” And verse 23 says, “Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father.” If you ever truly confessed the Son, you will always confess the Son. If you ever truly believed in the Son, you will always believe in the Son and the Father. When somebody falls away, it’s because they were never genuine followers of Jesus.

But the statement here is not about standing on earth. Being kept has to do with earth; standing has to do with heaven, standing in the presence of His glory. All this means is He keeps us here and takes us there.

Whenever you read in the Bible about somebody who was in the presence of God, it’s a horrific, traumatic experience, right? Isaiah pronounces a curse on himself. Ezekiel falls over like a dead person. Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration fall over in a semi-coma. John, in the book of Revelation, sees the vision of Christ and is like a dead person. Just absolutely scared out of their wits so that they faint. Whenever anybody is in the presence of God in Scripture, it is a frightening experience because they know they’re sinful.

But someday we will stand in the presence of His glory. What’s the next word? (Blameless.) We will be blameless. We will be faultless. Not only will we not violate God’s law, but we’ll keep every bit of it all the time forever. It’s not just that we’ll be there in the absence of sin, but we’ll be there in the presence of holiness. Not only will we not be capable of doing evil, we’ll only be capable of doing right. We’ll have every power and every passion emancipated from evil and devoted only to holiness.

And we’ll be there with our heads lifted up, blameless before God. And instead of fear and trauma and panic and fainting, we’ll be overwhelmed with joy. Joy forever. Joy is another word that defines what heaven will be like. Zephaniah 3:17, tells us another aspect of heavenly joy. Listen to this, “The Lord your God will rejoice over you with joy. He will joy over you with singing.” Isn’t that great? Not only will we sing praise to God, but He’s going to sing praise concerning us. Jesus went to the cross for the joy that was set before Him. And what’s that joy going to be? Fellowship with us. He’s going to rejoice over us. God’s going to rejoice over us and we’re going to rejoice over the Lord and over the Father.

Let me close by quoting that great Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon. He wrote, “I think that’s the most wonderful text in the whole Bible. God Himself singing? I can imagine when the world was made, the morning stars sang together, shouting for joy. But God didn’t sing. He said it was very good, that’s all. There was no song. But when all the chosen race shall meet around the throne, the joy of the eternal Father shall swell so high that God will burst into infinite song. [A]nd when I heard it said that the Lord would keep His people right to the end, when I heard it said that Christ said, ‘My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand,’ when I heard that said, I must confess that the doctrine of the final preservation of the saints was the bait that my soul could not resist. It was sort of a life insurance, an insurance of my character, an insurance of my soul, an insurance of my eternal destiny. I knew I couldn’t keep myself, but if Christ promised to keep me, then I would be safe forever, and I longed and I prayed to find Christ because I knew that if I found Him, He would not give me a temporary salvation, as some preach, but eternal life, which could never be lost, the living and incorruptible seed, which lives and abides forever, for no one and nothing could ever separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Doxology. Praise and worship. Why? Well, among other things He is able to keep us from falling and to present us blameless before the presence of His glory. I like that, and I think you do too. Let’s pray:

“Lord, it’s to You, the only God, our Savior, a God who is by nature a Savior, to whom we come through Jesus Christ, our Lord. It’s to You that all glory, meaning, adoration, praise, and worship belong, before all time, now and forever. We give You all the glory and all the praise, and we say amen, amen, amen, let it be, let it be, let it be.

And if this were not true, all our praise for our salvation would be a prop for our fears. All of our praise, adoration, and worship songs would be a mental game to feel good and override our fears. But it’s true, You will keep us and You will present us in Your holy presence, faultless with great joy. It’s in that confident expression that our worship is rendered to You and we praise You in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

The Ultimate Promise Keeper – Joshua 21:41-45; 23:14

• June 6, 2024
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Joshua 21:41-45; 23:14

(GUEST MINISTER: Rev. Harold Parks)

We live in a world where promises are broken every single day. Promises to yourself – “I promise I am going to read my Bible every day.” Promises to your children – “I promise I’ll take to you the beach this summer.” Promises to your spouse – “I promise to love you ‘till death do us part.” The list goes on…promises to friends, promises to your employer and coworkers…and yes, even promises to God.

Here is a funny little story of man’s broken promises: A dying man gives each of his best friends — a lawyer, doctor and clergyman — an envelope containing $25,000 in cash to be placed in his coffin. A week later the man dies and the friends each place an envelope in the coffin. Several months later, the clergyman confesses he only put $10,000 in the envelope and sent the rest to a mission in South America. The doctor confesses that his envelope had only $8,000 because he donated to a medical charity. The lawyer is outraged, “I am the only one who kept the promise to our dying friend. I want you both to know I placed in the coffin an envelope with my own personal check for the entire $25,000.”

When promises are made, we expect them to be kept. But, as is often the case, they are often broken. Of course, I am talking about human promises. It’s another story, however, when God makes his promises. God always has and always will keep his promises. Like the old hymn says, “God’s promises are sure.”

God’s Promises

According to one of my resources, Dr. Everek R. Storms of Ontario, Canada, spent a vast amount of time studying the promises of Scripture. Writing in Contact Magazine, he said: “The Holy Scriptures contain a grand total of 8,810 promises. How do I know? I counted them. “All my life I have seen various figures quoted as to the number of promises in the Bible. The one most generally given is 30,000. Since this is a round number with four zeroes in it, I have always been a little suspicious about it. Furthermore, since there are only 31,101 verses in the Bible, it would mean that there would be practically one promise in every verse. I do not guarantee my count to be perfect, but it is the most accurate I know of.”

Dr. Storms goes on to classify the promises found in Scripture into eight kinds:
1. There are 7,487 promises from God to man (about 85 percent of all the Bible promises).
2. There are 991 instances of one person making a promise to another person.
3. There are 290 promises from man to God.
4. There are promises made by angels, most of them found in Luke.
5. There are nine promises made by “that old liar, the devil.” (For example, his promise to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would fall down and worship him.)
6. Two promises are made by an “evil spirit.”
7. Two are made by God [to his] Son.
8. Dr. Storms additionally found that one book of the Bible contains no promises at all—Titus. Ephesians has only six promises. On the other hand, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have over 1,000 promises each.

What section of Scripture most impressed Dr. Storms? He wrote, “The most outstanding chapter as far as promises are concerned is Psalm 37. Practically every verse is a most wonderful promise.” (Preacher’s Sourcebook of Creative Sermon Illustrations, Robert J. Morgan.)

These are a lot of promises, for sure. And the ones that have the most meaning for each one of us has to do with God’s plan of salvation. The Word of God is based upon the promise that if we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, he will save us and give us eternal life in God’s coming Kingdom. Without that promise, all the other ones are of little or no value.

God’s promises are a key aspect of His character. They are His covenant with us, His commitment to us, and His assurance to us. They are the guarantee of His faithfulness and love.

In the book of Joshua we see God’s promises being fulfilled in a very tangible way. The Israelites, after years of wandering in the wilderness, finally take possession of the Promised Land. This was a promise God had made to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And despite the many obstacles and challenges they faced, God was faithful to His promise.

A reminder for us today: No matter what we’re going through, no matter how difficult or impossible our circumstances may seem, we can trust in God’s promises. He is a God who keeps His word. He is a God who is faithful to His promises.

What exactly are God’s promises?: They are His assurances to us, His commitments to us. They are His guarantees of His love, His grace, His mercy, His provision, His protection, His presence, and His peace. They are His promises of salvation, eternal life, and a future hope.

Not just for the Israelites in the Old Testament: They are for us today. As the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.”

All of God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ: They are guaranteed in Christ. They are secured in Christ. And they are available to us through faith in Christ.

As A.W. Tozer once said: “God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.” This quote reminds us that God’s promises often involve things that are humanly impossible. But with God, all things are possible.

God’s Faithfulness

I’m reminded of a quote from Josh McDowell, who once said, “Knowing that God is faithful, it really helps me to not be captivated by worry. But knowing that He will do what He has said, He will cause it to happen, whatever He has promised, and then it causes me to be less involved in worrying about a situation.”

When we delve into the concept of God’s faithfulness, it’s important to understand that it is an inherent attribute of His character. God’s faithfulness is the bedrock upon which we build our faith and trust in Him. It is His unwavering commitment to us, His children, that He will always fulfill His promises, regardless of the circumstances.

A demonstration of His faithfulness to the Israelites: He had promised them the land, and despite the numerous obstacles and challenges they faced, God fulfilled His promise. The Israelites took possession of the land and settled there, experiencing rest on every side. This was not due to their strength or might, but because of God’s faithfulness.

More than fulfilling promises: It’s about His constant presence in our lives. He is always there, guiding us, protecting us, and providing for us. Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. In 2 Timothy 2:13, the apostle Paul reminds us, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” This is a profound truth that should bring comfort and assurance to our hearts.

His unchanging nature: In a world that is constantly changing, God remains the same. His love for us never wavers, His mercy is new every morning, and His grace is sufficient for us. The writer of Hebrews assures us in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” This unchanging nature of God is a testament to His faithfulness.

His commitment to our transformation: God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us that way. He is committed to our growth and transformation into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. This process may involve trials and challenges, but through it all, God remains faithful, using every situation for our good and His glory.

His justice: He is a righteous judge who will always do what is right. Even when we don’t understand His ways, we can trust in His faithfulness. He will always fulfill His promises and His word will never return void.

Understanding is crucial for our walk with Him: It builds our trust in Him and gives us the confidence to face any situation, knowing that our God is faithful and His promises are sure.

God’s Unfailing Love

As we look at Joshua 21:41-45, we see a clear picture of God’s unfailing love for His people. The Israelites had been through a lot – they had been slaves in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and faced numerous battles as they entered the Promised Land. Yet, throughout all of this, God’s love for them never wavered.

Joshua 23:14: Joshua reminds the Israelites that not one of God’s good promises has failed. Every single one has been fulfilled. This is a powerful testament to God’s unfailing love. Even when the Israelites were unfaithful, God remained faithful. His love for them did not depend on their actions or their faithfulness, but on His own steadfast love.

The same unfailing love that God has for us today: Just as He was faithful to the Israelites, He is faithful to us. His love for us is not based on our performance or our worthiness, but on His character and His promises. He loves us with an everlasting love, a love that never fails, a love that is always there, no matter what we do or don’t do.

The unfailing love of God: It’s a love that is steadfast, unwavering, and unconditional. It is a love that fulfills every promise, a love that gives us rest on every side, a love that delivers us from our enemies. It is a love that is always there for us, no matter what. This is the love that God has for us, and it is this love that we see so clearly throughout the book of Joshua.

The Ultimate Promise Keeper

Missionaries Dick and Margaret Hillis were caught in China during the Japanese invasion. The couple lived with their two children in the inland town of Shenkiu. The village was tense with fear, and every day brought terrifying reports of the Japanese advance. At the worst possible time, Dick developed appendicitis, and he knew his life depended on making the long journey by ricksha to the hospital. On January 15, 1941, with deep foreboding, Margaret watched him leave.

Soon the Chinese colonel came with news. The enemy was near and townspeople must evacuate. Margaret shivered, knowing that one-year-old Johnny and two-month-old Margaret Anne would never survive as refugees. So she stayed put. Early the next morning she tore the page from the wall calendar and read the new day’s Scripture. It was Psalm 56:3—“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”

The town emptied during the day, and the next morning Margaret arose, feeling abandoned. The new verse on the calendar was Psalm 9:10—“Thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.”

The next morning she arose to distant sounds of gunfire and worried about food for her children. The calendar verse was Genesis 50:21—“I will nourish you and your little ones.” An old woman suddenly came to their house with a pail of steaming goat’s milk, and another straggler arrived with a basket of eggs.

Throughout the day, sounds of warfare grew louder, and during the night Margaret prayed for deliverance. The next morning she tore the page from the calendar to read Psalm 56:9—“When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back.” The battle was looming closer, and Margaret didn’t go to bed that night. Invasion seemed imminent. But the next morning, all was quiet. Suddenly, villagers began returning to their homes, and the colonel knocked on her door. For some reason, he told her, the Japanese had withdrawn their troops. No one could understand it, but the danger had passed. They were safe.

This morning we’ve been reminded of the faithfulness of our God. Every promise He made, He kept. Every word He spoke, He fulfilled. That’s the God we serve. He’s not a God who changes His mind or goes back on His word.

Near the end of the book of Joshua there is a second verse that reminds us of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness toward us. It’s Joshua 23:14, “I am now going the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and all your soul that none of the good promises the LORD your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed.”

As humans our promises are imperfect, but God is the Ultimate Promise Keeper. He is 100% faithful, 100% dependable, 100% trustworthy. He will not fail.

GOD IS THE ULTIMATE PROMISE KEEPER.

As we leave here today, let’s carry this truth in our hearts. Let’s remember that God’s promises are sure and His love never fails. Let’s strive to trust Him more, knowing that He is faithful to fulfill His promises.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.