Today on the Verdict with Pastor John Monroe. What is God really like? God and His love is searching for the lost. What is God really like? God and His love runs to you when you stop running from Him.
What is God really like? God and His love welcomes home the lost, and all heaven rejoices in a tremendous celebration of amazing grace. That's what God is like. Welcome to the verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. What is God really like?
For an accurate view, we need to take a closer look at what He has revealed in His Word. Today, Pastor John Monroe approaches the end of our study on "What Would You Ask God?" as we attempt to understand the very heart of God and the magnificence of His grace. Let's listen as Pastor John Monroe introduces his message, the God of Amazing Grace. What comes into your mind when you think of God? We're getting towards the end of the series on God and questions we would ask God.
Today we're considering one of the attributes of God, which I love. He's a God of Amazing Grace. We hear people frequently refer to the grace of God, and I know all of us are familiar with the hymn "Amazing Grace." But what is grace? What does it mean that God is a God of grace? Why is this so essential to our understanding of God?
To help us understand grace, we turn today to one of the best love stories in all of the Bible.
So let's turn in our Bibles to Luke chapter fifteen, as we consider the God of amazing grace. What is God really like? Do you ever wonder what God is really like? Today we're going to learn three pictures. We're going to see three pictures, three pictures of what God.
Is like, and we're going to see them from Luke chapter fifteen. If you have a Bible there, I'd like you to open it with me to the third Gospel, the Gospel according to Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and we're going to look at probably one of the better-known chapters of Luke, Luke fifteen. Luke fifteen, and first of all, we're going to read verses one and two. Here is the word of God to us.
Now all of the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near him to listen to him. That is, to Jesus. And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them, or this man welcomes sinners and eats with them." The tax collectors and the sinners were the irreligious people, the people who didn't go to the synagogues. We would say the non-churchgoers of the day, but they loved to listen to the teaching of Jesus, and they loved to spend time with Jesus, having a meal with him. But to the religious establishment, to the scribes and the Pharisees, it is unthinkable that a holy person like Jesus, who claims to be holy, who claims to come from God, is unthinkable that he would spend time with such despicable characters, to such self-righteous people, to such judgmental people.
To such people with such a warped view of God, Jesus tells three stories, and in so doing, he reveals what God is really like. He reveals the heart of God. What is God really like? Verse three, he told them this parable, saying, "What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep, and does lose one of them?" Does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." I tell you. That in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. What is God really like? God is like a shepherd seeking and finding a lost sheep and rejoicing when that lost sheep is found. That's what God is like.
What is God really like? Verse eight, or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them, doesn't light a lamp, and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it, and when she's found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost." In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. What is God really like? God is like a woman searching for and finding a lost coin and rejoicing when she finds it. That's what God is like.
What is God really like? Verse eleven, he 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." And he divided the wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate with loose living.
Now, when he spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be in need. And he went and attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he was longing to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. And when he came to his senses, he said, "How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger." I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me as one of your hired men." And he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced and kissed him. And his son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his slaves, "Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fattened calf. Kill it and let us eat and be merry. For the son of mine was dead, and has come to life again.
He was lost and has been found." And they began to be merry.
Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things might be. And he said to him, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he's received him back safe and sound." And he became angry and was not willing to go in. And his father came out and began entreating him, and he answered and said to his father, "Look, for so many years I've been serving you, and I've never neglected a command of yours, and yet you've never given me a kid that I might be merry with my friends. But when the son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you killed a fatted calf for him." And he said to him, "My child, you've always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.
But we had to be merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead, and is alive, and was lost, and is found. What is God really like? God is like a father running to welcome home a son who once rebelled, but is now repentant. That's what God." Is like. And as we read these parables, or perhaps one parable in three parts, however you choose to look at it, these parables are not so much about a lost sheep or a lost coin or a lost son.
These parables are about the heart of God. They are about a celebration of amazing grace as the lost are found. I don't want to study all of the details of the parables. Interesting, although that would be, but rather painting with a a broad brush. I want to sketch.
Three pictures, three pictures, which will help us to see what God is really like. We don't have time to deal with the elder brother in our story, other than to say he's a picture of the Pharisees and the self-righteous. Here then is our first picture as we try to paint this picture of what God is really like. Here's the first one: God, in His love, searches for the lost. What a beautiful picture!
Do you think of God like that? God, in His love, searches for the lost. As we read Luke chapter fifteen, we begin to understand that lost people matter to God. In Luke fifteen, there's a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost boy. But even when they're lost, they continue to be of value to the shepherd, to the woman, and to the father.
We think of the shepherd. He had a hundred sheep. One lost sheep only represents one percent loss. You say not bad for a businessman to have a one percent loss. But the shepherd didn't look on it like that.
The shepherd did not want to write off the lost sheep. One lost sheep matters to this shepherd. The woman also could have written off the lost coin, saying that she still had nine. That was a ten percent loss, not unknown in business. But one lost coin matters to this woman.
The father certainly didn't write off his lost son, as some fathers might have done. He didn't say, "Well, my son is a self-centered, rebellious waster. All he cares about is himself. He doesn't care about home." He doesn't care about his parents. He doesn't care about his siblings.
He doesn't care about the family. All he cares about is himself, and he's gone. And quite honestly, good riddance. All he has caused me is problems. There's a sense of relief now that he's gone.
I've still got my older son. Good riddance to him. No, that's not the heart of this father. The lost son matters. To the father, this father loves his boy.
You see, the religious establishment that we saw in verses one and two—they write off the tax gatherers and the sinners. They don't care about the lost. They look on themselves as the religious, as the good people, as self-righteous. They wanted nothing to do with the outsiders, those who don't know the law, those who are outwardly sinful, those who don't go to the synagogues. They want nothing to do with them.
But by telling these stories, Jesus is teaching us a very important lesson, and it is this: that lost people matter to God, and that you and I matter to God. You see, left to ourselves, according to the Bible. We are spiritually lost, and the Bible never flatters us. In fact, the Bible likens us to sheep. That's not very flattering, is it?
To be likened to a sheep, but the Bible tells us that the Old Testament prophet Isaiah says that we are like sheep. Not only are we like sheep, we are like sheep who have gone astray. Each one of us turning to his own way. Put sheep out in the open, and they are going to wander away. It says the Bible that's like us.
Simply put, all of us are lost. We are like the younger son, wanting to do our own thing in our own way in our own time. I don't mean to say that we've all left home in rebellion.
Some of us may have. But the attitude of our heart is to do our own thing. Our favorite song is, even if we don't like Frank Sinatra, is "I Did It My Way." That's what we want to do—to do things my way, to live life my way, not your way. Today, I want to remind you that lost people matter to God, and in Amazing Grace, the whole point of the parable. In Amazing Grace, God searches.
For the lost, who takes the initiative to find the lost? It is the shepherd who searches and searches for that lost sheep. Jesus says in verse four, until he finds it. We don't know how long he took, but he took a long time, and he kept searching, and he didn't stop searching until he found that lost sheep, that one sheep. What about the woman?
The woman knows the coin's value, and she searches for it. In verse eight, we read that she lights a lamp, she sweeps the house, and she searches carefully until she finds the one lost coin. And even when the son is in the far country, wasting his father's inheritance, the father never stops loving the son. When his boy comes home. It is the Father, not the Son.
It is the Father who runs. The Father runs to welcome home his Son and to embrace him. Do you realize that although you are lost, although you have strayed from God, although you have rebelled against God, that God still loves you. That God so loves the world that you are of value to God. You matter to God, as we learned last week from Psalm one hundred and thirty-nine.
That God has wonderful plans and purposes for each one of us, and that God, in His grace, has gone to great, great lengths to find you. This is the wonder of God in His searching love. This is the wonder of Christmas. This is what Christmas is all about—a God who is on the search, a God of amazing grace. You say, "Well, what does God do to find me?" God, the Father, sends His Son to seek and to save the lost.
I read from Luke chapter fifteen. If we looked over to Luke chapter nineteen, verse ten, we hear Jesus Himself saying. For the Son of Man, reference to himself. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. And by telling these three stories in Luke chapter fifteen, Jesus is explaining his mission is in coming to earth.
He's on a rescue mission. This is the reason for the season that Jesus came—not just to give us some inspired teaching. Not just to show us an example of love, not just to do some powerful miracles. Although he did all of these in coming to earth, his primary mission is to seek and to save the lost. He's on a rescue mission, and he's on a rescue mission for the lost.
God and His grace, seeing us like sheep, turning to our own way, lost. Going in all kinds of directions, doing her own thing, sends his son. This is the wonder of God's amazing grace. That God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. In His love, God is searching for you.
You matter to God. That Jesus Christ not only came to seek the lost, He came to save the lost. And by dying on the cross for our sins, He did that. By rising from the dead, He demonstrated that He is the true God, and He's the only way, and He's the only one who can get you into heaven. The only one who came from heaven to earth and has gone back to heaven and can open the gate of heaven to to let you in, and he's able to do that.
That's why he came to save people who are lost, like you and me. Are you lost? Have you personally received this salvation? Have you been found? Here is our first picture: God, in His love, searches for the lost.
Here is the second picture. God in His love runs to you when you stop running from God and yourself. God in His love runs to you when you stop running from God and yourself. Eventually, the son stops running. He obtains his inheritance from his father.
Goes to a distant country and has a great time spending money. It's great spending money, isn't it? It's even greater when you're spending other people's money. And this boy has a great time. He's many friends.
He becomes a party animal, doesn't he? Incidentally, parents, did you notice that the father in the story let his boy leave home, let him go when that boy? God his inheritance and turned his back on his father and his home and his mother and his brother. That must have been like a dagger in the father's heart, but the father let him go. And the sun goes down to the far country to the bright city, and for a while.
His life is absolutely brilliant, and some of you know that, isn't it? Isn't it good to get away from home, to do your own thing, to party, and to live your life with accountability to no one—not to your parents or a school or a church—just to do your own thing. It's absolutely brilliant, isn't it? For a while, and this son discovered that the same lesson that some of you have discovered, and that a famine comes. Not just a famine with a shortage of food, but a famine of the soul.
And the son's economic and social life abruptly change. His money goes, his friends they disappear, and his difficulty even surviving. And now he's got to work for a living, and the only job he can get is looking after pigs. Hardly a great job for a Jewish boy, and even the pigs are better off. As he sees them eating the pods, at least they've got something to eat.
And then, when he's at the very bottom of his life, the very worst moment of his life, something wonderful happens. Verse seventeen. And when he came to his senses, Jesus says, "He came to his senses." Spiritually speaking, have you ever come to your senses? When this young man came to his senses, his thoughts turned to father and home. He begins to realize that home wasn't that bad after all.
He begins to realize that for far too long he'd been running away from himself and running away from his father. And he does something wonderful in verse eighteen. He acknowledges that he had sinned against God and his father. Verse eighteen: I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight." How wonderful! Oh, he defended his father.
He led a very self-indulgent, selfish, self-absorbed life. That's true. But he realizes that most important of all, he had sinned against God. He was beginning to repent. He doesn't blame his parents for his predicament.
He doesn't say, "Well, I was brought up in a rather strict household." He doesn't blame his older brother, who in the story doesn't seem to be the best kind of character. He doesn't make any excuses, no rationalizations, no finger pointing. No, he knows he has blown it big time. He knows he's lost. He knows he's sinned.
He's a broken young man now, and his running and his self-centeredness and his self-indulgence are now coming to an end. He realizes verse eighteen that he had to get up and go. Verse twenty says he got up and came to his father. The biblical word for that is repentance. This young man repented.
Repentance is a change of mind, but not just a change of mind. A change of mind which results in a change of attitude and of direction. He had turned his back on home once he had got what he wanted. Goodbye, folks, and he had headed in this direction. But now he comes to his senses, and he realizes that he had sinned against a holy God, as well as his father.
And now he gets up, and retraces his steps. A different young man, a young man who was a lot wiser. It was a radical turning round. It was the most important decision this young man would ever make in his life. And he realizes, as we see in verse nineteen, that he did not deserve the privileges of sonship.
Of course, he didn't. He'd taken advantage of them. Give me now, Dad, what I deserve. I really don't want to be part of your family. All I want from you is my money, so I can live my own life and I'll set my own career.
And goodbye to you. He doesn't deserve to come back to the father's house. He doesn't deserve to be treated like a son. He got it right, and he comes home humbly and with a changed heart and a humble spirit. He heads for father and home.
This is the verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. There's still more to hear when John returns in just a moment, so stay with us. From matters of truth and identity to the subjects of love and grace, our world seems more confused than ever. But to find truth and certainty about who we are and find peace, we must turn our attention away from the world and look to the Word of God. To help you do that, John wrote a booklet titled "Eternal Security: Finding Certainty in a Chaotic World." Through this special resource, John shares his personal testimony along with a careful examination of Scripture to offer us clarity on matters of eternity.
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Now, here's Pastor John Monroe.
Well, what's your verdict? Do you have a better understanding of grace now? This grace, which truly is amazing, is not just to be understood, but is to be personally embraced. As you are listening today, perhaps you also are searching for God. How wonderful to learn that God, in His amazing grace, is searching for you.
Will you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord? For it is by grace you're saved through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't miss next time as we consider further the God of Amazing Grace. Thanks for joining us today on the Verdict. I'm Michelle Davies.
Today's program with Pastor John Monroe was produced and sponsored by Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
