Easter - Risen: Reclaiming the Father Heart of God - Risen - Reclaiming the Father Heart of God, Part 1

Why do we celebrate Easter?

I mean, when you boil it down, we all know the details of what actually happened, but the issue is why. Why exactly did Jesus come, and what difference does it make to ordinary people like you? That's today. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drewy, and thanks for joining us as we kick off a short series called Risen that will prepare your heart for this Easter weekend. For the next two programs, Chip walks through three well-known parables in Luke 15 that reveal the Father-like love God has for us, and how that love led Jesus to make the ultimate sacrifice some 2,000 years ago. Now before we begin, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge or just want to learn more about us, go to livingontheedge.org.

There you'll find tons of resources on a wide range of topics and countless programs for you to enjoy. Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry. Well, if you have a Bible, turn now to Luke chapter 15 as Chip begins today's talk. We're going to go on a little bit different journey as I prayed and thought about what God would want you to hear and what He would want me to say. I realized that each year, you know, we talk about what I call the what of Easter, the history, historical fact. But at least in my experience, I didn't grow up believing in Jesus as my Savior. But I did go to church.

In fact, I came more often on Easter. And I kind of heard the what. I heard the history. I heard the story. But I never made the connection.

So why? And you don't really get all the why from the Easter story. But if you could eavesdrop the very last night that Jesus was on the earth, He was praying. And as He was praying, it's one of the longest recorded prayers of Jesus in all the New Testament. And He goes into the garden and He asks some of His close followers to hang with Him. He's already sung a hymn. He's washed their feet.

They've celebrated the Passover. He knows that within an hour or so, He will be kissed by a close friend in betrayal. He'll be taken away by a group and go through three unlawful trials throughout the night. And in a matter of hours, He'll hang upon a cross and die.

And this is His final conversation of length and depth with the Father. It's found in John 17. I put it on the front of your notes, and it reveals for us the why of Easter. Jesus said this, He looked up toward heaven and He prayed, Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I brought You glory on earth by finishing the work that You gave Me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory that I had before the world began. I have revealed You to those whom You have given Me. That prayer asks, really, and answers three questions. And the first question is simply, what did He ask? And what He asked was, glorify the Son. And that word glory can be one of those Bible words.

The word literally means weight. It means to enhance the reputation of, to make clear. He's saying, Father, this last night, now what I want You to do is I want You to let people see who I really am and why I really came so in order that they could see who You really are. The second question is why did He come? He came to give eternal life.

In your notes in dark there, could you just circle the word gave? That He might give eternal life. And don't think of eternal life as something like after you die, eternal life begins.

That's not what the Bible teaches. If you never knew what eternal life is, He defines it. Eternal life is when you have relationship with the Father. He says it's knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. His purpose was to remove every barrier so that you would have relationship and connection with your heavenly Father. And the moment you receive Christ, He comes into your life and eternal life begins at that moment and then goes on forever.

Third, the question, how did He do it? And the answer is He revealed what God is like. Jesus came to reveal exactly what God is like.

This may be one of the things that we don't think about too much. In Jesus' day, almost everybody believed in God. There were thousands of gods. It was under Roman occupation. The Romans ruled, but it was a Greek culture. But it was a Greek culture that had conquered the world through Alexander. And so there were Eastern gods and Western gods.

There were, it was much like I was in India a number of years ago in one town. There was a thousand gods in one town. I thought that was a lot and I talked to some of the people that said, oh, in India there's over a million gods. And today there's all kind of gods.

If you ask people, do you believe in God, most people will say yes. But they might refer to the higher power. They might say God is like the intelligent designer. I don't know what He's like, but some intelligent creature designed, some spirit being did this. For others, He's sort of like a self-help genie.

And there's these principles, invisible principles. It's kind of like mother nature and these created things. And you just live your life the best that you can and that's God. For others, He's someone who's very austere and angry and you need to pray five times a day and eat certain foods and do certain things and you get on His bad side, it's not good. And for others, it's like a principle of life, like a water drop that multiplies and it's God is in and on everything.

And so you go through various renditions of life and if you're very fortunate, you might go to a higher level someday. So people believe in God. A lot of different pictures of what God is. That was true in Jesus' day. So Jesus came. The Scripture says that no man has seen God at any time, but He, Jesus, has explained Him or revealed Him. Jesus said if you want to know what the Father's like, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father.

So what I want you to know the why behind Easter is Jesus wants to get clear for every single person, not some vague idea of a God or a belief in God, but a very specific picture of God, the God that created, the God who's real. Let me give you an example of how important this is. I'm going to say a word and it's going to be something that either most of you own or most of you drive. And when I say this word, I want the picture of what you think about when I say this word.

Okay, are you ready? Okay, one, two, three, car. What comes to your mind? Car. Now I'm going to guarantee at least in one mind immediately someone said Lamborghini, right? For some of you it was car.

Rusted, I need a new one. For others it was car and you thought we got eight kids, we adopted four more, it's a 15 passenger van. And for others it was BMW, for others it was Ford, others it was Chevy, for others it was sedan, for others it was luxury. How many people believe in car?

Everybody. But when you say car we can mean so many different things. Jesus came that when you say God it would not mean all these different things that you think it is, but once and for all people would know this is what God is like.

Tozer, I put his quote in your notes, he's one of my favorite authors. He says what comes to your mind, what comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. And I believe that's true. I mean what comes to your mind when you say car, if you've got nine kids and someone says come with us we have car and you get there with your nine kids and it's a Lamborghini, you've got a problem. You see how you envision God to be is how you understand yourself, it's how you interpret the world, it changes everything, it's how you treat other people. If God is some sort of rendition of just invisible lifeless and personal principles and people are getting what they deserve, you don't help them.

They're just getting what they got from a past life. If God is really angry and mad at everyone and he must be appeased and he's a wrath of God then you need to extend his wrath and eliminate anything or anyone that disagrees. Your view of God changes everything. So Jesus, the why of Easter is he wants you to get a clear specific picture of what God is really like. Sometimes the most religious people in the world have the most warped view of God.

I'm going to ask you if you will to open to Luke chapter 15, it's in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and Jesus is going to tell a story to make clear exactly who God is. Now as you get there, the reason he's going to tell the story is that the religious leaders, he is messing with their picture of God. They have a picture of God who kind of has these scales and the people that live like them and are squeaky clean God really cares about and everybody else are losers. And Jesus is kind of messing with him because he hangs out with quote sinners and prostitutes and in that day tax collectors. And they're comfortable around him but they know he doesn't approve of their lifestyle but he loves them and he accepts them and he doesn't talk at them or about them.

He actually goes to their house, goes to the coffee shop, hangs out with them, he cares about them. And the religious leaders called Pharisees, they're going this is not good, this doesn't make sense. And so Jesus wants to answer them and in answering them he's going to give a crystal clear picture of what God is really like so that when we leave we'll know not just the what and the history of Easter but the why. And what you're going to learn is he's going to give a parable, it's singular but inside the parable will be three quick stories and each story builds on the last one. The first one is about a lost sheep, the second one is about a lost coin and the third one is about some lost sons. So follow along, let me read the story and then we'll kind of discover what was really going on and then I want to help you understand today who God really is and how he feels about you. We pick it up in verse one, it says now the tax collectors and the sinners were all gathering around to hear him.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of law muttered this man welcomes sinners and he even eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable, suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and he goes home. And then he calls his friends and his neighbors together and he says rejoice with me, I've found my lost sheep. I tell you in the same way there's more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. So notice in your notes, here's the pattern, something is lost followed by an intensive search, something is found and then there's a celebration or a party and then there's a snapshot.

And here there's a snapshot of heaven. There's a snapshot that okay, what matters to a shepherd? Sheep. If you lose a sheep you go find it. And that day the boys and the men, their ears perked up when they heard this one because shepherding was a very common occupation. Not only that but if you were a shepherd, if you lost a sheep you had to pay for it unless you could demonstrate wild animals killed it. And so in the back of their mind they know that God is a shepherd. Remember the 23rd Psalm, the Lord is my shepherd. So all of a sudden they're thinking whatever he's talking about it's a lot like how a shepherd feels about sheep, they matter.

They'll do whatever it takes. Well so the ladies don't get left out we have the second story and this is about a coin. Or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Does she not lie to lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it she calls her friends and neighbors together and says rejoice with me, I've found my lost coin.

In the same way I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Now ladies if you have your wedding band and a diamond ring, whether it's small or large it matters right? And if you happen to be doing the dishes and you take off your ring and your wedding band and you do the dishes and then this slides here and this slides here and maybe even goes down the disposal and then pretty soon you realize like hours later it's gone.

Man you'd tear the kitchen apart wouldn't you? Well these ladies in this day they would have 10 coins in a band around their head, often it was their dowry. Each coin was called a drachma and was worth about one day's wage. And so if you lost one of those it would be like losing your diamond ring or your wedding band. And so what matters to a woman when she thinks about her marriage let alone the financial cost?

She scours this matters and when she finds it, oh boy, she puts it back on. He says with that kind of intensity, with that kind of passion, with that kind of desire not just heaven is there a party but if you want to know what the angels are doing here's the snapshot. The angels, these angelic eternal beings they party, they celebrate, they sing when one person who is far away from God comes close to God and has eternal life. Story number three, the parable of the lost son or literally it's the lost sons. Jesus continued, there was a man who had two sons the younger one said to his father, father give me my share of the estate so he divided his property between them. Not long after that the younger son got together all that he had and set off for a distant country and there he squandered his wealth and wild living.

Basically he took a Vegas trip. After he had spent everything there was a severe famine in the whole country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out as a citizen vet country who sent him to the fields to feed his pigs. Now if you're a Jewish boy and your job is feeding pigs this is not good but it gets worse. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything to eat.

And so I mean he's hitting rock bottom. So it says he came to his senses and he said how many of my father's hired men have food to spare and here I am starving. I will set out and I will get back to my father and this is what I will say. Father I've sinned against heaven and against you I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired men. And then here's the part where the story changes. This is the part where the Pharisees are listening to the story and so far it's making sense. And this is the part where their sense of justice and their religiosity and their view of God gets absolutely turned around. Because they would think the story is okay son finally back you had enough I told you not to go you don't measure up. Well I'll tell you what here's the way it works you know servants live in the house hired like you've just apologized to me.

Hired people live in the village and you can live in the village and it'll take you about 15 or 20 years because I had to liquidate a lot of the property. You can pay me back and then we'll talk about whether you can be my son again. That would be the Pharisees version of what God is like. It's not what Jesus said. Jesus changes their entire view of God. But the father said to the servants quick bring the best robe and put it on him.

Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For the son of mine was dead he's alive again he was lost and he's found.

So they began to celebrate. Now just before we talk about the younger son let's finish the story because there's an unexpected ending. What we see is what we've seen right. Someone is lost but did you notice that no one goes searching. The father is waiting and looking but no one goes and finds him. He comes to his senses. Repent means to turn around. He turns around and comes back. His father greets him and accepts him and we'll talk about that. And then his older brother is out in the fields and we have an unexpected ending because the older brother are the Pharisees.

And Jesus is going to say something very radical to them. Meanwhile the older brother was in the field and when he came near the house he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him kind of like what in the world's going on? Well your brother's come home he replied and your father has killed the fatted calf because he's home safe and sound.

Notice the response the older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him but he answered his father look all these years I've been slaving for you. I'd never disobeyed your orders yet you never even gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours squandered your property with prostitutes comes home you kill the fatted calf for him. The father's response my son the father said you're always with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and he's now alive. He was lost and now he's found.

Let's do just a little analysis and kind of look at what's happening. First of all to understand the story and know the young son. The young son's request is basically I want mine now. In Jewish culture the oldest son got a double portion of inheritance and then it was divided among the rest so he's going to get a third of all the estate. The implication basically is I wish you were dead dad it doesn't get this is rejection.

I wish you were dead I don't want you I just want the stuff that comes to me. Now under Jewish law the father would not have to do that he could just kick him out of the family but this father doesn't do that. The implications for the father are social and economic.

Number one he's embarrassed. I mean can you imagine if one of your kids says I don't like you I don't love you I don't want any part of you but I want a third of your house a third of your 401k and you know what you got three cars I'm taking one. So now he's selling property he's got a liquidate to get a third of his resources to get to this kid. So the father is really looking bad. Then the son hits rock bottom and he gets to the point where he's hopeless. He's morally, spiritually, relationally and financially bankrupt. He understands he's lost. You know he's he's done his Vegas trip his life isn't working out he's I mean he's tried it he's done it he's been there and he realizes man this is this is nuts.

I got my way and my way didn't work. And so it says he comes to his senses and he returns home but while he's on his way home apparently the father every day was looking and looking. And then there's some things here that are very subtle for Jewish culture but they make a big difference to us because Jesus is explaining God the Father.

He's not distant he's not austere he's not angry he's not wrathful. And so when he sees his son remember what it says he runs to meet him. Now they wore long robes the only way you could run would be to lift your robe and run for a grown man a patriarch to show his legs would be embarrassing.

Would never do that. And then when he greets his son what does he do? He interrupts his confession and he hugs him and embraces him and he says get the best robe and put it on him. Well who has the best robe in the father's house? It's the father's robe. And then he says put a ring on his finger. Well this this is like the way they did business then you would have a ring a signet ring a family ring it would mean you're a part of the family. It'd be like if you were part of a family company they give you the company credit card the black American Express with your name on it. You're part of the family again. And if you were a slave you went barefooted but give him sandals he's a son.

And then rarely would they have a big celebration especially with meat the fatted calf would be I mean we only do this for like you know the 50 year anniversary. And he just blows out the door and the whole town would be invited. And the younger son expected to have to earn his way back to God to live in the little village to pay him back over time to someday some way earn God's favor. And Jesus is saying that's how people think about my father and I came to explain he's not like that at all. There's nothing anyone can ever do at any time to work their way back to God. It's grace.

I love you. In fact the father's waiting he's looking he's searching it was true then and it's true now. And there's some of us that we we went down the younger son path before we ever understood that God loved us. And for a lot of us you know we were on this bad bad path and we didn't want to come back because we thought I know what I'm going to hear. You know arms crossed toe tapping God telling me you know you messed up and you live with so and so and you had an abortion over here you've been through one marriage over here. You're bankrupt your house is upside down it's upside down because you were greedy then you did this and you know anything and we just we just medicate ourselves. And we don't know there's a father who says I'm just looking for you to come back so that I can give you my robe of righteousness that I can make you a part of my family and seal it. And I want you know that I love you not if not because your life will change but you don't clean up your life to get back in my favor. That's why Jesus came to pay for your sin and mine.

And so that's how the story goes. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and the message you just heard is from our Easter series Risen Reclaiming the Father Heart of God. For more information about this ministry or our many resources go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003 that's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org. Well Chip before we share this Easter message we heard from your wife Teresa who talked about our innate value to God through her series Precious in His Sight. We'll talk for a minute if you would about the connection between our identity in Christ and Easter.

Dave I just have to tell you I think there's an amazing segue as a new Christian one of the very first verses that I memorized was 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. If any man or if any woman is in Christ you're a new creation the old things pass away behold all things become new. And you know so often I think we are good at telling the story of Easter right you know awesome fully man fully God. God the Son died in our place was buried rose again the third day and he's ascended into heaven and we get that picture. But what we forget is it's so that we have new life we have a brand new identity we're a brand new person.

And I think we spend an awful lot of time talking about the story and the facts that is so important. But we forget it's the birthing of a absolutely new person and that's really what being precious in his sight is all about. And so I'm thrilled that we can offer this book and these affirmation cards during this season where we're really celebrating Jesus died for you. You died with him you rose with him you're a new person with a new identity.

Now the question is how do you live that out? Thanks Chip. Well I can't encourage you enough to get Teresa's new book Precious in His Sight and a set of her affirmation cards that we've bundled together. And if you haven't thought of it already these resources would make great Mother's Day gifts for any of the women in your life. So be sure to place your order by April 29th to receive this bundle in time. For all the details go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap special offers. As we wrap up I want to thank those of you who make this program possible through your generous financial support. Your gifts help us create programs, purchase airtime, and develop additional resources to help Christians live like Christians. Now if you've been blessed by the Ministry of Living on the Edge would you consider sending a gift today? Call us at 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners tap donate. Your support is greatly appreciated. Well until next time this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.