Amazing Love (Part 2 of 7)

Luke Chapter 15 records Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, the 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, and 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 having begun the story of the Father's love expressed in his compassion towards his two wandering sons, one who was wandering in a distance and one who was wandering close up.

And we'll read from the eleventh verse of Luke 15. 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 he had, set off for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have 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. So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. The father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put 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. If we were to ask one another this morning to recall places in our lives that have been marked by significance, I'm sure it would be a quite fascinating exercise. Certain individuals may recall, for example, 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, a cemetery where they had laid to rest a loved one or a military colleague. For some, the bus stop at which they stood routinely waiting for the arrival of their conveyance.

A 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 a half with exceptionally greasy fingers to arrive late for your piano lesson. If you can pick up any autobiographical note in that, you're a very discerning group. For some of us, where we spent our tenth anniversary, where he gave me that ring, where he proposed to me, there'd be a whole host of things. But I'd be very, very surprised if any of us said that one place that I remember is a pigsty.

Of course, it's 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'll remember all my life, though some have changed, some for good and some for better, some have gone and some remain, all those places have their moments. With lovers and friends I still can recall, some are dead and some are buried.

In my life, I remember them all. I think this young man would have been quite happy to play that Lennon and McCartney song. He certainly would have been able to identify with its sentiment when he had set off taking all that he had, all that had fallen to him. He knew that he had a great and glorious future in front of him.

At least, he believed so. If anyone had said on the day of his departure, within a relatively short time, you will be broke, you'll lose your money, you'll lose your friends, you'll lose your sense of self-esteem, he would have 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 pigs. But note carefully, if we had asked him in years to come about that place in his life, he would have said, you know, that pigsty, my place of deepest distress, actually proved to be the location of my most delightful, life-changing discovery. Now, try and picture him in your mind as Jesus describes him here, standing in the midst of all of these pigs having spent everything.

It wasn't 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. We might have thought that the friends that he had made in the fairly riotous time that he'd 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 very clear, longing to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. Now, we saw that when he left his father's home, as Jesus tells this story, it was a planned departure. He 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 4-13, because he got together all he had. He didn't leave anything in his bedroom, none of his 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, and he left.

I'm gone, and I'm not coming back. Now, 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, turn their back on God Father and walk away out down the road of their lives to please themselves. Jesus, in his teaching, has been very, very careful, as we've noted through Luke's Gospel, to make application to different groups in relationship to their needs. So recorded for us at the 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'd gone amongst the crowds, we would have said, Why are you doing this?

This is why we like to come. It's quite dramatic. You never know when Jesus is going to do a miracle. You never know when he's going to give just a zinger of a sermon.

And quite frankly, we'd been drifting in any case, and so we decided we'll just drift here rather than drift there. Jesus, of course, is not interested in having people just drift behind him. And so he turns to these heedless enthusiasts, and he issues them a striking word of warning. They must have pinned their ears back, remarkably, when he said to them, By the way, just to let you know, those of you who've been following me now in this crowd, if 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't actually be one of my disciples.

Now, what was he saying there? 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 you are here this morning, and you just are wandering in the footsteps of Christ. Of course, I don't know who you are, you know who you are, and Jesus knows who you are.

You've begun to wander in, and we're delighted that you're here. But we want you to hear what Jesus is saying to the large crowd that is beginning to follow him. Don't think that just because you've wandered into the company of my disciples that that makes you a disciple. Listen very carefully, says Jesus, to what I'm saying, so that you might become my disciple.

Now, when you get to the fifteenth 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. Now, this, 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 invitations. And so this Jesus of Nazareth, this rabbi from Nazareth, this teacher of the people of Israel, if he were anything in relationship to the truths of the Messiah we've considered from of old these Pharisees reasoned, he certainly wouldn't be with these people. Of course, they failed to understand the wonder of what God is doing in the Lord Jesus. And it's not a commendation, they utter, when they say this man welcomes sinners and he eats with them.

And as we saw last time, of course he does. And so Jesus was eating with the sinners, the young man was not eating with the pigs. Now what I want you to notice 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 were his home life would appear to be able to provide for him everything that he wanted.

Not everybody could say to their father, Give me the portion of goods that falls to me and have their inheritance granted them and go very far at all. So this man had never known need. Right? But now he knows need. He was the party guy. He was the one who apparently was able to come into town and make it all happen. He was like the tragic story of the young man in The New York Times this week from the business college in New York state.

The twenty-four-year-old who killed the other young student, carried him around in the trunk of his Range Rover for seven days, deposited him in a storage unit for five days, took him back out of the storage unit, and buried him underneath a barbecue in his backyard of his Long Island home. And as the story has unfolded this week, it is clear that this young man, a twenty-four-year-old son of a prominent Atlanta businessman, has never known need. He was able to take an apartment in Times Square for a new year and invite all of his friends to come. He could provide it all. But his tragic circumstances this morning in some penitentiary or in some custodial setup say, He's now in need. He's not driving his Range Rover, and he is not drinking with his friends, and he's in need. It's a moment of great opportunity for him.

It's a moment of great tragedy for his family. The kind of tragedy and opportunity that is described in this little phrase, look at this young man, so full of himself in his arrival, so empty now as he finds himself, quote, verse 17, starving to death. Now, it's interesting, isn't it, that although he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, nobody gave anything, and apparently he didn't eat the stuff. What if he had ate the stuff? What if he had begun to eat pig food?

What if the people had come along with just enough bags of chips and a couple of sandwiches to keep him comfortable in the pigsty? For not everyone who finds themselves in a predicament such as this discovers it to be a springboard of freedom. For some individuals, it becomes quicksand, sucking them into ever-deeper degradation. Therefore, it is not a foregone conclusion that because an individual comes to an end of themselves that they will inevitably say, Aha! I need God!

I need to get to my father! And you may have come to an end in yourself. Oh, it may be disguised by your income. It may be disguised by your home. Pigsty for you equals 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 that there's no reason to go out and to cry about things. The young man lost his money, lost his freedom, lost his self-respect, but he refuses to dehumanize himself, and he decides to stay hungry. The hunger gnaws at his soul, and it keeps him thinking, and it keeps him searching.

Is that you this morning, thinking and searching? Let me tell 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's circumstances portray it clearly. That 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.

It just explains that it does. If we knew it from nowhere else, we would know it from the story of Moses, when the writer of the 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 pain.

Bringing with it the fact of our having disobeyed God. But nevertheless, you know, 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 that likes to look down on everyone, there is immediate gratification in being a self-righteous snob, because you have that moment where you can just look down on everyone. If you're a junkie, there is satisfaction in the immediacy of the fix. If you're an adulterer, 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 destruction. You don't have to be a heinous sinner. You can just be a nice sinner with your fingernails cut and clean, with your cuffs starched and white, with your initials monogrammed on the cuff, with your office tidy, and yet, in the very core of your being, this little upper-middle-class sinner finds no ultimate satisfaction. It's like drinking salt water. 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 there? I talked to my friends, some of them who went deep into drugs. When they started smoking pot, they said, Pot is nothing, it takes you nowhere. But it wasn't enough for them, for they wanted to get high.

And that actually made them kind of low. And somebody said, This is high. And somebody said, This is higher.

And somebody said, This is higher still. And they're in the grip now of total enslavement, and there is no ultimate satisfaction. If you talk to those who've been caught in the realm of pornography, they will tell you the same thing. There's not a picture this man can look at now that means a thing to him. Because it has taken him further and further and further and further into a sordid quest that cannot satisfy. The liar can never get to an end of his lies. The proud can never get to the end of their pride. The bitter can never get to the end of their bitterness.

There is no ultimate satisfaction in sin. It's a stupid idea. And that's why we labor to say to our young people, pragmatically, This is a dumb way to go. This is a silly way to go. Don't go this way.

Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. I don't want to hear this anymore. I don't 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 want to hear about Jesus. Just give me some cash and let me get out of here. Oh, Son, it's a broad road, and it will lead you to destruction. 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 he's run out of food, but that he has run out on his father. Not that he's run out on food, but that he's run out on his father. He's now discovered what Augustine, that other great prodigal, made so perfectly clear. And if you've never read the Confessions of Augustine, the Penguin Classic is useful.

You'll find it in any decent book, sure. And Augustine, in the midst of it all, says, You have made us for yourself, O 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 for us an existence that is poor and is a shoddy substitute for all that God intends. If you and I try and live without God, no matter how good we may try and get it, it will not deal with that central angst within our souls.

What Pascal refers to as 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's immediate benefit to that. But you don't know why you're doing it. And your heart is restless. Your teaching that you began in, with this great flush of enthusiasm. You were gonna change the world through these kids, and these kids are killing you. Your lessons that you thought were brilliant are average, and your abilities are less than you really imagined. And worse than that, you're saying, What's the point of all of this? See, your heart is restless until you find your rest in God.

You could put the CD in, or the MP3, and you play your music, and you lie on your bed, and you look up at the ceiling, and you say, I'm restless. Of course you are. God made you for himself.

And you've turned your back on him. The compelling reminder that we've all run from the Father. We'll continue our series called Amazing Love next week. You're listening to Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, you've 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 its truth is unchanging and without error. We know that when God's Word is taught, unbelievers will be converted, believers will be established, and local churches will be strengthened. So it's our passion to spread God's truth as far and as wide as possible. It's also our passion to provide you with books to help you grow in your faith. That's why today we're 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, and the book Living Well brings those truths into modern-day living. This is a book that will guide you through the practical life lessons God gives in his Word. The author has chosen themes that are prominent in the book of Proverbs and relevant to life in today's world. He's 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. The sections on parenting in particular offer a great deal to think about if you have children, prodigals or not. You can learn more about the book Living Well by going online to truthforlife.org. I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for joining us today. Next weekend, Alistair continues the story of the prodigal son in a series called Amazing Love. Be sure to join us then. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.