Unquenchable Love, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Not only did the Father withhold punishment, the Father bestowed gifts. It is the greatest word in the English language and the word that separates the Christian message from every other religious message in history. Grace. God not only withholding from us the anger that we do deserve, but also showering us with multiplied goodness that we do not deserve. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm Molly Vidovitch. We're returning for the conclusion today of our teaching on the prodigal son. And you know, I think this story resonates with all of us because on some level, let's face it, we are all prodigals.

We've all chosen to go our own way at some point against the wisdom we know to be true. Well, today, Pastor J.D. shows us how every single one of us can also experience the love and grace of our heavenly Father, who always welcomes us back home with open arms. So we're going to jump back in where we left off yesterday in Luke, chapter 15, in a message titled Unquenchable Love. Number four, God loves you as he wraps you in his arms. God loves you as he wraps you in his arms. It says, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran.

A couple of things here. First of all, that word compassion might be my favorite Greek word of all. And if you've been around the Summit, you've heard me tell you what it is before. It's the Greek word splagma. And I say it like that on purpose, because in Greek it's onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia, where a word sounds like what it is, splash, crash. Splagma means an emotion from the bowels, like from your gut down here.

It arises spontaneously. Splagma. You want to say it? I'll say it, you say it.

Splagma. If it doesn't sound like you're retching, you're not saying it right. It's a compassion that is just comes from the deepest part of who you are. It's almost like you can't control it. This emotion this father feels comes from somewhere deep inside of him. He doesn't have to think about it. It's almost like a reflex. It's instinctive.

This is not a calculated, all right, what's the right thing to do here kind of decision. This is what is naturally in the father's heart. All throughout the gospels, we find that phrase and Jesus was moved. He was overcome with compassion, splagma. He was moved by compassion and he healed the people and he taught them. It was the most natural gut reaction that Jesus had in the presence of sin and suffering.

Remember the story of the woman who touched Jesus? And Luke says that Jesus felt the power go out of him, almost like he wasn't even cognizant of it when it happened. Almost like he wasn't in control of it, like it was a reflex.

I love how Dane Orland explains this. His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain. We saw this a few weeks ago in the story of Jesus healing the man that his friends lowered through the roof before they could even open their mouths.

Words of reassurance and healing just came tumbling out of Jesus's mouth. It's his natural instinct. He is love and kindness all the way through so that the most natural thing to him when he sees someone that he loves in pain is his heart is just overcome with compassion. You say, wait a minute, doesn't God feel wrath about sin? Yes, but the point is that is not his first instinctive emotion. His first instinctive emotion is compassion.

I need you to understand that's what he feels for you this weekend. Second word to notice is that word ran. Grown men in those days did not run. Even in our day, grown men don't usually just run in public. You see a grown man running through the mall.

It's either because he's just committed a crime or somebody's trying to commit a crime against him. That was especially true in those days. Running was considered undignified. Furthermore, men of stature wore robes. Robes are not good for running. Nobody enters a marathon with a full ankle length robe. To run, this man would have had to lift up the front of the robe and expose his knees, which doesn't seem like a big deal to us, but in those days that was considered a nakedness.

It was considered shameful. Yet the father seems oblivious to all of this. He's so overcome with compassion for his son that he's forgotten everything else. Example I always like to use here is Jimmy Valvano in 1983 when NC State did the incredible and won the national championship after Lorenzo Charles caught an airball shot by Derek Wittenberg, who to this day maintains it was a pass, not a shot, but you watch the tape, you can decide. And then Lorenzo dunked it at the buzzer. Then buzzer goes off and coach Valvano starts running around like a crazy person.

I mean, look at he looks insane. The thing is he didn't care. He didn't care. What if you saw in that just a glimpse of the excitement that God would feel if you came home. The father embraced him and he kissed him, began to whisper in his ear assurances of his love. My wife Veronica tells a story about how she wandered away from God during her high school years. She grew up in a Christian home, but her love really grew cold and she just began to wander. And so when I came down to go to college, she decided that was going to be her break. She was going to leave the Christian faith behind. So she went to UVA that first semester and she said, I just was, this was me walking away from Jesus. She said, been there just a couple months and got invited by a friend to go on a Christian ministry retreat. She said, I'm not even sure why I went, but I'm positive that I was tricked into going.

Like I do, I had something about, you know, the beach and some friends. And then next thing, you know, it was like, Oh, by the way, there's a speaker and singer there also. And she said at the end of one of the talks, the subjects of which she cannot even remember, she said, the speaker asked the attendees to pair up and pray for one another. Veronica said, I'd never met the girl that was sitting next to me. We'd never had even a single conversation, but she began to pray out over me exactly what was going on in my life. This girl verbalized in prayer things she would have had no way to know my fears, my questions, my sins. And then she began to pray the love of God into my life. Veronica said, I felt completely exposed. I knew in that moment that God was confronting me, revealing my brokenness, speaking his love, whispering his love into my ear. I was completely undone.

God had demonstrated to her that he knew her every secret and loved her anyway. What I'm telling you is that if you stop right now and you listen, I'm telling you that is what God has whispered to you. Listen to him. You're sitting there right now and you're thinking this is me. I'm telling you, you're right.

It is you. He's speaking to you. The son said to him, verse 21, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, by the way, did you notice that the son never got through his little prepared speech? He planned to tell his dad about this plan to become a servant or work off the debt. His dad just says, shut up. And then says to the servants, verse 22, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him.

Then put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost. Now he's found and they began to celebrate. Number five, God loves you as he baptizes you with grace and makes all things new. He gives his son three gifts. The first is a robe and not just any robe, by the way, the best robe, which by the way, the best robe would have belonged to the father. That means the dad was giving the son his own garment, a ring. This was a symbol of the family authority. He is immediately, the son is being restored to his status as a son with all the rights and privileges thereof. Sandals, sandals were a sign of wealth.

Servants in those days did not wear shoes in the house, only sons did. In other words, not only did the father withhold punishment, the father bestowed gifts. It is the greatest word in the English language and the word that separates the Christian message from every other religious message in history, grace. God not only withholding from us the anger that we do deserve, but also showering us with multiplied goodness that we do not deserve. Where's the punishment? There's not even a word of mention of it. Who pays for the son's reckless living?

There's no talk of that either. By the way, the father had already given the son his full share of the inheritance, which means that all these new gifts are coming out of his own stores. The father absorbs the debt. Where's the shame? Shame's been removed. The only shame in this story is experience when the father lifts up his robe and runs after the boy. You can see this story gives us the smallest glimpse into how Jesus would save us in the cross. You see, the cross was Jesus running after us, covering us in grace. There at the cross, Jesus would take upon himself our shame. There he was going to be beaten and spat upon and mocked.

The Romans always crucified criminals in public places to humiliate them. People walked by Jesus and taunted, save yourself, miracle boy. Looks like God doesn't think of you as my beloved son now, does he? There at the cross, Jesus absorbed the cost of your sin, sin incurred a penalty. But just like the father in this story, Jesus did not require that payment from you.

As the nails were driven into his hands and his feet, he was absorbing in your place that penalty into himself. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised from my iniquities, paying the price so that I could be at peace with God. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one of us to our own way, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, interestingly. And the part of Deuteronomy 21 that I quoted earlier, where it says that a rebellious son should be stoned, right after that, I mean literally right after it, Deuteronomy 21 says, everyone who hangs on a tree will be considered cursed by God. It almost seems like a random insertion, like you're talking about one thing and then suddenly you throw in this other thing.

It just seems random. But see, now on this side of the cross, we know that it's not random. Moses was prophesying some 1200 years before Jesus that all of us, like that prodigal son, were going to reject our father. And all of us were going to bring that curse of death on ourselves. And Jesus was going to come and be hung up on a tree to suffer the curse and shame that we had incurred.

He was going to absorb our curse and pay our penalty. At the cross is where Jesus took off the garments of our sin and clothed us in the robe of his righteousness out of his own closet. The cross is where Jesus placed on our finger the ring of a new life to as many as received him. To them he gave the right, the authority to be called the children of God. And that includes the authority, by the way, for you to overcome sin and evil by his power.

It means the power to put your family back together. It means the power to escape the curse and the addictions of sin. All that belongs to Jesus now belongs to you. The cross is where he put on our feet the sandals of a privileged position with the father so that we can come boldly into his presence like sons, not like servants. You see at the cross God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us. He made the one who had not departed to be as one who had departed so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord. Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt.

Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured there where the blood of the lamb was spilt. Y'all if the cross had never happened this whole parable would be just a quaint little story about a dad's love for his kid. But when you read this story in the light of the cross you see that God is the true prodigal. God is the one who spent himself recklessly and extravagantly, who ran to you, who embraced you and kissed and clothed you in power and grace. By the way, I'm going to show you this in just a second, but in Jewish culture it was the responsibility of the older son to go out after a wandering younger son.

This whole parable of Jesus is asking the Pharisees, why aren't you doing that? Jesus in coming to earth, watch this, plays the part of the older brother also, going out after the lost son, even taking the death penalty that the younger son deserves. But the main point that I want you to see in all of this, listen, is that this whole story from start to finish is bathed in the love of God. God loved us when we rejected him. He loved us when we wandered. He loved us when he brings us back. He loves us as he baptizes with grace. See a lot of times people talk about salvation as if it's this calculated theological transaction.

He paid a debt he didn't know because we owed a debt he didn't pay. It is not a calculated theological transaction. It is God's heartbroken pursuit of you.

That is what has saturated the whole thing from start to finish. He knew you and loved you before even the foundation of the world. His love, Dane Ortlund says, is not like a lightning strike in your life that just occurs at one point at your conversion.

It's like an avalanche. It's like an avalanche that starts and just builds throughout your life and the deeper you go into sin the greater it is for you and that's what God feels for you this morning. Which leads me to two final quick things before we close. Number six, God loves you when you're too proud to receive his grace. Verse 25, watch this, now his older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what these things meant and the servant said to him, your brother's come home and your father has killed the fattened calf because he's received him back safe and sound. Verse 28, but he was angry and he refused to go in so his father came out and entreated him. Then he answered his father, look these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command.

Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours comes home who has devoured your property with pride and prostitutes you killed the fattened calf for him. I was reading this story by the way to my family and I'm like okay so one person was not happy that the son had come back who was it? And my son raised his hand and said the fatted calf and I said yes that is also true that's not exactly what I was thinking about the fatted calf certainly had a bad day but I was thinking more the older son because he was angry.

Verse 31, he said to him son you're always with me all that's mine is yours it was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this your brother was dead and is alive he was lost and is found. Now this brother on the surface looks like the opposite of the younger son right he's the good boy but there's a subtle detail that you don't want to overlook. This older brother is also outside of the house. Do you notice the father has to go out to him also? He's actually got a lot in common with the younger brother. Both want the father's things but neither really wants the father. Both want the father's inheritance but neither wants to be like the father.

This older brother doesn't want to be with his dad either. He resents his father's grace and he has no desire to be like him. Who is Jesus directing this toward? Well we know the occasion for him telling this story is it actually tells us in chapter 15 verse 2 it says that the Pharisees and scribes were complaining this man welcomes sinners and eats with them. This story is Jesus's response to that. The Pharisees don't understand God's love for broken people because they don't see themselves as broken but they are. What Jesus is teaching here is that there are two ways that you can stay separated from God.

Two ways. One you can run off to the far country like the younger brother and just give yourself to reckless sin. The other way to stay separated from God is to stay near the house of religion and use rule keeping to cover up the fact that you're not like God and you don't really love him. In some ways the religious brother is worse off because y'all at least the younger brother knows that he needs redemption. The pride of the older brother keeps him from seeing how truly broken he is.

He's a stranger living in the house. You see the Bible says all of us religious or not, rich or not, cultured or not, educated or not are hopelessly broken on the inside and none of our religious deeds can change that. In fact Jesus said religion just makes us like a whitewashed tomb. Clean and polished on the outside but full of rotten flesh and dead men's bones on the inside.

And the more you try to clean yourselves up through religion instead of throwing yourself on the grace of God the worse you make things. My second daughter and I probably should not tell this story because I did not get her permission but I won't tell you her initials but her name is Ali. When she was four she just disappeared to the bathroom for a long time. Now you know if a grown man disappears the bathroom for a long time that's not a big deal.

Takes a Motor Trend magazine he's in there for a couple hours no problem but when you're four years old that's an issue. So our friend Stacy who was babysitting at the time got a little bit worried so she went over to the bathroom door and she put her ear next to it and she heard crying. She said she opened the door and she almost gagged because there was Ali standing there beside the toilet with and I'm sorry if this is a little gross but poop everywhere on her arms, on the sink, on her face. Stacy said I don't understand how poop got on her face. And she said Ali was just standing there crying saying I tried to clean myself up I tried to clean myself up. See that's what religion is.

Everything you do has the stench of death. Are you going to go and apologize to Ali later? She said sorry I told this story.

She doesn't mind self-defecating humor okay so she gave me permission on that. But the the point is that religion never works. What you need is a change of heart. See I got good news for you religious people. God loves you also. He wants to give you that. You see the story is an invitation. Do you notice this story never resolves? This cuts off abruptly in verse 32.

What's after verse 32 chapter 16? And so you're left asking well what exactly does the older brother decide? Does he receive his father's invitation to come in or does he stay outside of the house? You don't know because the story is an invitation to older brothers telling older brothers that the grace of God is for you also. He loves you even when you're too proud to receive his grace and he stands ready to receive you the moment that you are humble enough to admit that you need him. So cast off your idolatrous and ridiculous pride and just confess that you are as broken and needy as the prodigal in the far country and receive his grace for you. And then in a moment we'll cure you of that arrogant smug condescension that makes you feel better than other people. It'll make you a fundamentally different person.

That leads me to our last point number seven. You can choose to stay outside of God's love. You can choose to stay outside of God's love. Like I said this story never really resolves because you can stay outside of God's house.

Yes God's love is overflowing and it's never ending but he won't force it on you. That means you can stay outside of the house and if you choose to spurn his love what choice does God have but to bring his judgment on you? Remember this verse from last week I showed you 2 Thessalonians 1-7. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels not as a prodigal father not as a father going after a lost son or daughter this time in flaming fire he will inflict vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away forever from the presence of the Lord. If you won't receive God's grace then you've got to suffer the worst kind of eternal judgment but I'm here to plead with you and tell you that is not what he wants. Lamentations 3 33 he does not afflict from his heart.

He does not from his heart grieve the children of men. In other words wrath and affliction don't come out of his heart. What he wants from his heart is to save you. What's in his heart is to bring you home and wrap you in his arms and pour out mercy on you but see you've got to choose that.

He's not going to force it on you. That means the most important question about your life that you will ever answer is simply are you going to come back to the father and receive that mercy? We want you to see today that if that's never happened to you it can happen to you right now. You ever received Jesus? Who in your life needs to hear this message? Is there someone that you can run after with the life-changing message of God's love? Like Jesus explained those who understand the grace that they've received are anxious to see it extended to others so take that step today and share the gospel message with someone in need. You're listening to Summit Life with pastor and author J.D.

Greer. If you missed any of this message you can always catch up free of charge at jdgreer.com. Pastor J.D. we're always looking for new ways to help others integrate the truth of the Bible into their everyday lives.

After all it's what gives us the power to share our faith with those around us. Can you tell us about our latest resource? Yeah one of our goals here at Summit Life is to is to equip people who who listen to Summit Life to become a disciple making disciple and God's word and his power the Holy Spirit they're the only ones that can actually produce that kind of change in your heart but he uses tools as gateways for his power. One of the most effective tools is scripture memory that's why we've been offering this pack of 50 scripture memory cards that that make it easy to memorize scripture it goes about the rate of one per week a promise a warning of scripture something about the character of God that that the Holy Spirit can use once you memorize it to activate his power to change your thinking and to release his power in your heart.

If you'll go to jdgreer.com you'll see how you can get a copy of these. I think they'll be extremely helpful in your spiritual life. Scripture memory is one of the most life-changing things I've done and one of the things I'm most thankful for that my parents and my teachers early on in life made an essential part of my Christian discipleship. We'd love to send you this exclusive new set of cards today. These scripture cards remind you of God's steadfastness and unchanging promises and then can help you commit them to your mind and your heart.

What power and assurance we can have when we know I mean really know God's word and can remember it in our time of need. Ask for the Rejoice Always scripture memory cards when you give today by calling 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgreer.com that's jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich and I'm so glad to have you with us today. Be sure to listen tomorrow when Pastor JD takes us along the road to the cross where we will meet a handful of different people each of whom has a different response to Jesus' sacrifice. That's Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.