Amazing Love (Part 2 of 7)

Chapter 15 records Jesus parable of the prodigal son story of a young man who takes his inheritance and leaves his father's house.

The parable teaches a valuable lesson about the need all of us have had today on Truth for Life weekend. Alistair Begg explains how sin always fails to satisfy that deep need his message is called amazing love. We left off last time you begun the story of the father's love expressed his compassion towards his two wanderings, sons, one who is wondering in a distance, and one who was wondering close and will read from the 11th verse of Luke 15, Jesus continued there was a man who had two sons, younger one said to his father. Father give me my share of the estate, so he divided his property between them long after that, the younger son got together all he had set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth and while living after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need. So we went in hired himself out to a citizen of that country was sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods of the pigs were eating, but no one given anything when he came to his senses. He said on many of my father's hired men have food to spare.

Here I am starving to death.

I will set out and go back to my father and say to him that I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men got up and went to his father while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son through his arms around him and kissed him the sunset. Jim fought I've sinned against heaven and against you are no longer worthy to be called your son. The father said to his servants, quick bring the best robe and put it on him with a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet bring the fattened calf and kill it.

Let's have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Amen we were to ask one another this morning to recall places in our lives that have been marked by significance. I'm sure would be a quite fascinating exercise. Some individuals may recall an example of the garden in which they had labored so long to make so beautiful and had to leave behind others. The church in which they were married. All those long years ago for some symmetry where they had laid to rest a loved one or a military calling for some the bus stop at which the student routinely waiting for the arrival of their conveyance of fish and chip shop in Scotland outside of which you stood eating the money that was supposed to be used for your bus fare and then having to walk a mile and 1/2 with exceptionally greasy fingers arrived late for your piano lesson. You can pick up any autobiographical note in that very discerning group. Some of us where we spent our 10th anniversary where he gave me that ring where he proposed to me there be a Holo something to be very very surprised if any of us said the one place that I remember as a pigsty course is an interesting congregation and I wouldn't hold out against the possibility that a number of you do have supreme recollections that are directly related to a pigsty somewhere because there are places I remember all my life. Though some of change, some for good and some for better some of gone.

Some remain all those places have their moments with lovers and friends. I still can recall summer dad and some are very my life. I remember them all writing this young man would've been quite happy to play that Lennon McCartney song. He certainly would've been able to identify with that sentiment when it set off taking all that he had all that had fallen to them. He knew that he had a great and glorious future in front of them, at least he believed so if anyone it said on the day of his departure within a relatively short time, you will be broke, you lose your money you'll lose your friends, you lose your sense of self-esteem, even if said you're absolutely crazy and yet look at him now verse 15 hired out to a citizen of the country to which he went and sent into the fields to feed pace. Note carefully if we had asked him in years to come. About that place in his life.

He really said you know that pigsty. My place of deepest distress actually proved to be the location of my most delightful life changing discovery trying picture in your mind as Jesus describes in here standing in the midst of all of these pigs.

Having spent everything was a very good time to be broke because his own personal circumstances combined with the location and the famine around him only underscored his predicament might've thought that the friends that he had made in the fairly riotous time that he been spending would have stood up for him in the extremity, in which he finds himself but the staggering phrase at the end of verse 16 is ready clear longing to fill his stomach with the pods of the pigs were eating, but no one gave him and I think we saw that when he left his father's home as Jesus tells the story.

It was a planned departure apparently had been looking forward to getting out from underneath the framework of his father. No more interference no more resistance no more intrusion upon the great horizon of his life which he expected. Just give me give me and let me go. Apparently it was a permanent departure. As we noted in verse 413 because he got to get all he had. He didn't leave anything in his bedroom.

None of this stuff. None of his medals.

None of his athletic achievements.

None of his photographs.

None of his clothes.

Nothing he got together everything that he had any left. I'm gone and I'm not coming back.

I remember in all of our study of this that Jesus is telling a story here in order to describe the way in which men and women in their rebellion and in their indifference turned their back on God father and walk away out down the road of their life's to please themselves. Jesus, in his teaching is been very, very careful. As we've noted, through Luke's gospel to make application to different groups in relationship to their knee so recorded for is an end of chapter 14 are the words of warning which Jesus extends to those who are just heedless in their enthusiasm.

Large crowds verse 25 were traveling with Jesus. If we got amongst the crowd really said why are you doing this is what we like to come is quite dramatic. You never know when Jesus is going to do a miracle you never know when he's going to get just a zinger of a sermon. And quite frankly we been drifting in any case, and so we decided we just drift here rather than drift their Jesus. Of course, is not interested in having people just drift behind it and returns to these heedless enthusiasts and issues in a striking word of warning. They must've pinned their ears back remarkably.

When he sent to them by the way just to let you know those of you who been following me now in this crowd you plan on coming to me and do not hate your father and your mother and your wife and your children and your brothers and your sisters and even your own life you can actually be one of my disciples. What was he saying that he was saying that to follow Christ is the singular priority. It demands our supreme attention it demands our ultimate devotion and our devotion to Christ is to be so strong that our love even for those nearest and dearest to us in Hebraic terms would be regarded as frankly hateful in comparison to the extent of our love for Jesus and some of your here this morning and you just are wondering in the footsteps of Christ.

I don't know who you are, you know who you are and Jesus knows who you are begun to wander in and were delighted that you're here, but we want you to hear what Jesus is saying to the large crowd that is beginning to fall in don't think that just because you wandered in to the company of my disciples that that makes you a disciple listen very carefully says Jesus. What I'm saying so that you might become my disciple. Note when you get to the 15th chapter. It flips to the other side and he gives then having given a word of warning to those who are heedless in their enthusiasm. He gives a word of hope to those who are honest in their penitence.

Notice of course really frustrated the Pharisees because the Pharisees believed essentially in salvation by isolation or salvation by segregation. There are all these bad people around in the world they said and we must take the higher ground and get above them and away from them. Don't play with their kids don't welcome them into your homes don't deal with them in business and certainly don't respond to any of their invitation and so this Jesus of Nazareth is Rabbi from Nazareth. This teacher all the people of Israel.

If you are anything in relationship to the truths of the Messiah. We've considered from of old, these fantasies reason he certainly wouldn't be with these people fail to understand the wonder of what God is doing in the Lord Jesus is not a commendation. The author, when they say this man welcomes sinners and he eats with them as we saw last time.

Of course he does. So Jesus was eating with the sinners.

The young man was not heating with the pigs. What I want you to know this is a phrase in verse 14. It essentially is the place of our departure for this morning after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the whole country and he began to be in need. He began to be in need. Doubtless this was a new experience for this young man. Certainly the circumstances that where his own life would appear to be able to provide for everything that he wanted. Not everybody could say to the father give me the portion of goods that falls to me and have their inheritance granted and go very far at all. So this manner never know need right. But now he knows need. He was the party.

He was the one who apparently was able to come into town and make it all happen. It was like the tragic story of a young man in the New York Times this week from the business college in New York State. The 24-year-old who killed the other young student carrying them around in the trunk of his Range Rover for seven days deposited them in a storage unit for five days to come back out of the storage unit and buried them underneath the barbecue and it in his backyard of his Long Island home and as of this story is unfolding this week. It is clear that this young man, a 24-year-old son of a prominent Atlanta businessman is never no need. He was able to take an apartment on in Times Square and for new year and invite all of his friends to come he can provided all but his tragic circumstances this morning and some penitentiary or in some custodial set up say he's now in need in our drive in his Range Rover and is not drinking with his friends and knees and needs a moment of great opportunity for a moment of great tragedy for his family. The kind of tragedy and opportunity that is described in this little phrase get this young man so full of himself and his arrival so empty now, as he finds himself quote verse 17. Starving today was interesting isn't it that although he longed to fill his stomach with the parts of the pigs were eating normally gave anything and apparently even eat the stuff.

What if he had witnessed whatever he had begun the pigs one of the people to come along with Justin on bags of chips and a couple sandwiches to keep them comfortable in the pigsty for not everyone who finds themselves in a predicament such as this, discovers it to be a springboard to freedom. Some for some individuals it becomes quicksand sucking them into ever deeper degradation.

Therefore, it is not a foregone conclusion that partner because an individual comes to an end in themselves that they will inevitably say I need God.

I need to get to my father, and you may have come to an end in yourself may be disguised by your income, it may be disguised by your whole pigsty for you. It was a very lovely home a significant job and the ability to travel, but it's still a pigsty but there's just enough to handle it for the moment, there's no reason to go out to cry about the young man lost his money losses freedom lost his self-respect, but he refuses to dehumanize himself and he decides to stay hungry. The hunger gnaws in his soul and keep him thinking and it keeps in section that you this morning thinking and searching retail you for those of you who are thinking and searching the Bible makes it very clear that sin provides no ultimate satisfaction and this young man circumstances portray it clearly is not to say that sin provides no satisfaction or provides no pleasure for clearly it does the Bible actually teaches that it does it doesn't hold it out on offer, he just explains that it does if we knew them from nowhere else we would not from the story of Moses, when the writer of Hebrews says of the decision that Moses makes in his adult life that he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. There is immediate gratification in sin, bringing with it its own. Bringing with her the fact of our having disobeyed God, but nevertheless you know it. If you want to have a candy bar that isn't yours. You can steal it and immediately enjoy the sugar fix that.

It gives you.

You will live with the implications of what you did, but it is a pleasurable sensation. If you're a self-righteous snob. I like to look down on everyone, that is immediate gratification and being a self-righteous no because you have that moment where you can just look down on everyone in your junkie that is satisfaction in the immediacy of the fix. If you're an adult. Rather, there is satisfaction in the illicit relationship in the immediacy of what it conveys to you, but in the long run. There is no ultimate satisfaction and this is of course what we long to say to men and women. This broad road really does lead to distraction, to be a healer center just be a nice center with your fingernails cut and plea with your comps, starch and white with your initials monogram on the cop with your office tightly and yet in the very core of your being. This little upper middle-class sinner finds no ultimate satisfaction is like drinking saltwater. It cannot eventually satisfy sin's ability both to interest a person and to satisfy a person very quickly runs out and of course there's every illustration of it isn't Utah. I talk to my friends, someone who indeed into drugs when they started smoking pot.

They said part is not an intention.

Nowhere. But it was not enough for them, for they wanted to get high and actually made them kind of low summary said this is high in Somerset. This is higher in summary, said this is higher still in there in the grip. Now of total enslavement and there is no ultimate satisfaction. If you talk to those who been caught in the realm of pornography that will tell you the same thing.

There is not a picture. This man can look at now that means nothing. Because it is taking them further and further and further and further into our sordid quest that cannot satisfy the liar can never get to an end of his license. The proud can never get to the end of their pride, the better you never get to the end of the veteran's there is no ultimate satisfaction and said it's a stupid idea and that's why we labor this into our young people. Pragmatically, this is a dumb way to go.

This is a silly way to go.

Don't go this way.

Father giving a portion of goods and falls again want to hear this anymore. I want to hear about the law.

I don't want to hear about the framework of life. I don't want to hear about the principles I don't want to hear about God first. I don't hear about Jesus just give me some cash and let me get out of here son is a broad road, no lead you to distraction.

I frankly don't care and I frankly don't believe you let me go and in the pigsty.

He discovers that his problem is not that is run out of food but that he is run out on his father, that is run out of food but it is run out on his father, is now discovered what Augustine that other great prodigal made so perfectly clear and if you've never read the confessions of an Gus Augustine Penguin classic is useful. You'll find it in in any decent books sure Augustine the midst of it all, says you have made us for yourself, oh God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. For this reason all of our attempts to live without God ultimately creates or is in existence that is poor and is a shoddy substitute for all that God intends.

If you and I train live without God, no matter how good we may try and get it. It will not deal with that central angst within our souls. For Pascal Rivera stupid is that God shaped void within the core of man the same way that you may be a very successful medical person here this morning you give injections. There is immediate benefit to that you don't know why you're doing in your heart is restless your teaching that you began in with his great flush of enthusiasm to change the world through these kids and these kids are killing you your lessons that you thought were brilliant, our average and your abilities in less than you really amount to and worse than that your say what's the point of all of this to your heart is restless until you find your rest and go to CDN or the MP3 player music and you lie on your bed and you look up at the ceiling and you sound restless Sheila God made you for himself, and you turned your back on the compelling reminder that all run father continue our series called amazing love next week listening to Truth for Life weekend with Alistair Begg. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life come to trust that you'll hear life changing Bible teaching on this program throughout the year.

That's because we believe the Scripture is the very word of God that it's truth is unchanging and without error. We know that when God's word is taught. Unbelievers will be converted. Believers will be established in local churches will be strengthened. So it's our passion to spread God's truth as far and as wide as possible, so also our passion to provide you with books to help you grow in your faith twice today will recommending a book that expounds on the teaching of the book of Proverbs. The book is called living well. God's wisdom from the book of Proverbs. God has given us a book filled with memorable wisdom.

The Old Testament book of Proverbs teaches us how to live wiser, more God honoring lives the book living well brings those truths in the modern day living.

This is a book that will guide you through the practical life lessons God gives in his word. The author's chosen themes that are prominent in the book of Proverbs and relevant to life in today's world is divided these themes into three big sections living well in relationships.

Living well within our own hearts and finally living well in the world. Each chapter in the book explores God's wisdom for everyday life and the book covers dozens of topics, including communication, money management, relationships, sections on parenting. In particular, offer a great deal to think about.

If you have children, prodigal or not you can learn more about the book living well by going online to Truth for Life.about Lapine clicks for joining us today. Next weekend Alastair continues the story of the prodigal son series called amazing love, sure to join us them. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life Learning is for Living