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David said, if you'd like to take out your bible and turn to Luke 15, Luke 15 is where we'll be. We'll begin in verse 11 here in just a moment. Luke 15 beginning in verse 11. Have a good number with us this morning, and we're grateful for your presence, your interest in spiritual things, and grateful for how well you've worshiped. And we pray that God and all things have been...

Has been pleased with what we've done. The prodigal son has been called the pearl and crown of the gospel or the gospel within the gospel, And it's been called the greatest story told in all of time. It has come to be one of the best known texts in the New Testament, and I think that's largely in part because its characters and message are so easy to identify with. Its lessons are practical and timeless. Its depth, unmistakable.

The prodigal son goes on a journey. We all know that, but the journey is not just to the far country wherever that might have been. He goes on a journey from being a son to a sinner to down in the pit with the swine and to a servant of his father and then back to a son again. That is what I will call this morning the prodigal sequence, and it's that sequence that I want us to consider for just a few moments this morning. If you have your bible open to Luke 15, let's read verses 11-24.

Those verses we kinda skipped over in bible class just a few minutes ago. Luke 15 beginning in verse 11. Then Jesus said, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided to them his livelihood. Not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal, riotous living.

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in all that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and despair, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, 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 fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry. For this, my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. They began to be merry. What do we learn from this story of the prodigal son?

Well, as we've said before, the main point Jesus is getting across is with the second son that we're not gonna read about in our lesson this morning. But this prodigal resonates with us, and I think there are some good reasons for that. We see the sequence of the prodigal son goes something like this, that he was a son in verse 11 with all of the benefits that would come from being a son, and yet he transitions from being a son into a sinner. He goes off into that far country and waste his inheritance of riotous, prodigal living. And after becoming a sinner, he finds himself down there in the bottom with the swine.

He's at this lowest point. He hits rock bottom, we might say, and he gladly would have eaten the food that the swines were eating. And from this rock bottom moment with the swine, he thinks of himself now as a servant and says, I wanna go back to my father. Maybe he'll hire me. Maybe he'll make me like one of his hired servants.

But we know the end of the story that the father restores him and he becomes a son once more. This sequence, this cycle, though, hopefully, for us, it ends with becoming a son again, is something that resonates with us, and I think that's true for a couple of reasons. First of all, it resonates with us because it's universal. Look at this. Is this not the story of mankind?

Is this not the story of God's redemption of man from sin? That in the Garden Of Eden, we had perfect fellowship with God, that we found ourselves eating and drinking with him, that they walked with God in the garden, that they had this relationship with God as his created children. And yet, they wanted the one thing that they didn't have, and God gave them that thing or they took it, we might say. And after they took it, they realized that they lost far more than what they had. They became sinners.

And, really, we think about not just Adam and Eve, that's the law of Moses, isn't it? The law of Moses condemns all under sin, and we realize our sin in this story because the law of Moses shows that we're sinners. And the low point, when we hit rock bottom is that Jesus comes and God sends his own son. And what do we do? We crucify him.

And it emphasizes the hopelessness of our situation in sin without Jesus Christ. But Jesus came to save us, and the path to salvation in Jesus Christ, we learn, is through service and submission and sacrifice. And so through Jesus Christ, we're restored, adopted back into the family of God. It is the universal story of the redemption of mankind, but it is also, as I hope we will see this morning, intensely personal because anyone who comes for salvation in Jesus Christ follows this same sequence from son to sinner to swine to servant back to son again. So let's think about it as our sequence, as my sequence mirrored by this parable of the prodigal son.

Like the sons in verse 11, we all begin life as children of God. We're created in his image. We are innocent. We are right with him. Jesus said if you wanna be a part of his kingdom, you have to become like a little child.

And like Adam and Eve in the garden, we are like God in every way except the knowledge of good and evil. But we know Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We ask for our inheritance, and sin comes alive in us. And we go from innocent and in a right relationship with God to sinners, from son to sinner, which is a picture of our rebellion against God, our father. And I think among other things, this parable shows us what an insult it is to God's blessings and God's goodness and God's grace that we go down the path of sin at all.

Remember, this younger son comes and asks his father to divide the portion of goods that falls to me. He's asking for, we say, though it's not specifically said in the text. He's asking for his inheritance. And when, under normal circumstances, do you receive your inheritance? You receive it when those from whom you are going to receive it, when they die.

When they pass away, that's when you receive it. And it's almost as if the son was saying, I would be better off if you were dead because I'd already have the things that you're giving me. Maybe you've not experienced anything quite like that, but I experienced something close at least in the moment. But y'all came over yesterday for our big fall fest party, and you saw those 12 foot skeletons. Do you see those?

We've had those for many years, and that's been really cool, you know, having those out there and so forth. In the first year, we had these big 12 foot skeletons. Brooklyn, you know, she's thinking about this, and she's looking at those. She comes to Stephanie and I, and she says, can I have those 12 foot skeletons when you die? And I said, you know, I guess.

Sure. And Stephanie looks at her and says, you know, we're probably gonna outlive those skeletons. And Brooklyn goes, oh, man. Well, that's not exactly what she meant. Right?

But in that moment, if that's really how she felt, I'd rather have the skeletons than you. We wouldn't feel very good about that. And yet so often, that's what we do with God like the prodigal. I don't wanna wait for an inheritance from you. I don't wanna have any future orientation.

I want what I want, and I want it now. This young man is saying, I wish you were dead, dad. Your money is more important to me than you are. And when we sin, that's what we're saying to God. All of the things you have to offer me in a relationship, can I just have those things in the world right now instead?

And, again, Jesus is trying to get us to feel what God feels, that this is how God feels when we sin. We're asking for our inheritance saying, I'd rather have things than you and a relationship with you. But what we learn is the prodigal son learns is that this world is not really where we belong. He goes to a far country. Now far is a term of comparison, isn't it?

Far has to be far from something else. It is a far country, far from home, far from where he started, far from where he was supposed to be. Because know this, rebellion only occurs against something else. And our sin is not just sin in some sort of general abstract sort of way. It is rebellion against the father who says that it is sinful, a loving father who says this is not what is best for us.

And restoration can only truly begin when we start to see the stupidity of our sin clearly. All sin is dumb, and I think we probably know that when we see other people. How can they ruin their life like that? And yet we must see our own sin and how foolish it is if we wanna go down the path of restoration. You know, I think about Hebrews 11.

Mark your spot in Luke 15. Go to the book of Hebrews in chapter 11. What is it that sets these people in Hebrews 11 apart from all the other people from the Old Testament that the Hebrew writer could have talked about and could have emphasized in terms of their faith, well, they're types of Jesus. They're shadows of Jesus, certainly. They, endured at the end instead of falling back.

But may I suggest that one thing that really sets them apart is their ability by faith to see the future, not just to be blinded by the moment and what's right in front of them, but to see something more beyond even that moment. And in Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 13, Hebrews 11:13, this is kind of a summation. He's gonna give some further examples, but this is what the Hebrew writer says. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, that this is the far country. This is where I don't belong.

For those who say such declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return, but now they desire a better. That is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them. Notice in verse 13 that they confessed, that they acknowledged this reality.

But what I want you to see is that this was true whether they acknowledged it or not. Whether they confessed that, yes, this is not where I belong or not. That that was true. That was the reality. But when we acknowledge that reality, that is when we can embrace the promises of restoration, when we see our condition for what it really is.

And I find it interesting, this young man in Luke 15, this younger brother, however old he was, he looks and he gladly would have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate. No one gave him anything, but he comes to himself and he says... And in my bible, it actually has it in quotation. He's saying this. Who's he saying it to?

There's nobody else there except for the pigs. Now I've talked to animals. You've talked to animals, a dog or a horse or whatever. I've never talked to the pigs. I had cousins who raised pigs.

Maybe they talked to pigs. I... But he looks and he says these things to himself. He realizes his situation and he says, what? What am I doing?

And the world and Satan... The reality is that world does not love us like we think it does. That world does not want what is best for us. And like the prodigal life outside our father's house is terrible, it is not the bill of goods that perhaps we have been sold. That's the way with us.

The best the world has to offer doesn't compare to what we have in Christ. But the reality is very rarely do we get the best that this world has to offer. What this world offers is not clean and bright. It is dark and dirty. It is filled with loss and pain.

You ever been around pigs? Like I said, my cousins raised pigs. There's a reason why the pig farm was, like, downwind. Right? And it was also, like, six acres away from where their house was.

Why? Because pigs stink, and they're supposed to be smart. Maybe they are, but nothing is too bad for a pig to eat. You wanna get rid of something, you can throw it in the pig pen. The pleasure of this of this world are like that.

They are temporary. They will not sustain us. They will abandon us in our time of need. The Hebrew writer calls it the passing pleasures of sin, and he was referring to all of those riches that Moses had in Egypt. He's a prince in Egypt.

But let's be honest, most of us are not offered all of treasures of Egypt for our soul, but even if we were, it would not be enough. All of the things that we find in this world, lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, John says in 1 John 2:15 through seven that all of those things, the world and the lust that is in it, those things are passing away, constantly passing away from moment to moment, from year to year, from time to time, from lifetime to lifetime. But it's the word of the Lord and the one who does that will from God who will abide forever. Covetousness leads us nowhere because uncertain riches can and will leave us and forsake us. Worldly friends will turn their backs on us on us, and even good things in this life.

Health and beauty, even power, Those things eventually fade away or become hollow. And all this happened to this son, and it can and eventually will happen to us if we trust in those things. From a son, we end up worse than swine. And for a Jew, Jewish audience to whom Jesus is talking, nothing could be worse than a Jewish boy who loses his inheritance and wishes he had the food of swine. And yet in that, there is hope.

From swine to servant is a picture of our repentance toward God, and this is one of the best definitions of repentance in all the Bible. The one who arrogantly said, give me, in verse 12, now ask contritely make me. I'm gonna go to my father and ask him to make me like one of his hired servants. This is a totally different person because he sees things as they are. And for us to come to God, we must first come to ourselves.

This is the turning point in the story in verse 17. When he came to himself, he said to himself, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and despair, and yet I perished with hunger. This makes no sense. But what it required of him was humility to admit his mistake, to see things as they really were, and to come tail tucked between his legs, to ask of the father rather than demand. This is the turning point.

Dan Shipley once wrote, from his pigpen perspective, he can see the vanity of self indulgence and riotous living. That man's life truly does not consist of the abundance of his possessions or the carnal pleasures that money can buy. Now he despises what he what he once yearned for and yearns for what he once despised. That's the way it is when men come to themselves. And some would say the prodigal had lost everything.

His money was gone. His friends had abandoned him. His time of wine, women, and song was over, and thus he found himself humiliated and hungry out here with the pigs far from home. There was no pity, compassion, no man gave him anything in the far country. And yet because he comes to himself, he's on the threshold of a greater inheritance, one that is incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you and me and all who would come back to the father and be willing to submit to him.

But seeing that is not enough. We have to act on it. He says in verse 18, I will arise and go to my father. I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired servants. So what does he do? Verse 20, and he arose and came to his father. And in verse 21, the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

He does what it is he says he's going to do, what he set out to do. And that awareness of his sin motivates godly sorrow. I have sinned against heaven and before you, we must say to God. And he is willing to become a servant because he knows that even being a servant is more than what he is... What he deserves after wasting what he has.

And we must see our sin and our great need for grace if this sequence is ever to be finished and for us to become sons. We must see that we need a physician because we are sick and others like the prodigal. Maybe they don't see their sin at first, but it is only when they see it, when we see it, that we can be resolved to arise and go to our father. That's how lost sons come home to the father and salvation to become sons once more, which is a picture of our restoration by God. God is looking for us.

His... When he was still a great way off, verse 20 says, his father saw him. How did he see him when he was a great way off? He saw him because he was looking for him all along. And when he sees him, he runs, and he has compassion, and he falls on his neck, and he kissed him.

And God is looking for us too. But unlike the two earlier parables, we must return to God in order to be restored. Have you ever noticed how long the shepherd and the woman in the first two parable for the sheep and the coin? They look until they find those things, and there is a fervency and patience in the searching. The searching is not ended until what was sought is found.

And the father, that is God, is looking in the last parable as well. He sees him, but he didn't go into the far country to find him, not in this parable. The son has to return to his father. But the father was ready and willing to forgive and bless if the son was willing to come back, and that perfectly represents our condition in sin. If it was just up to God and God's working, everyone would be saved.

But God allows us to have the choice to choose him or not. And to me, of all the failings of the doctrine of Calvinism, I think this is the greatest of those failings. The idea that God would arbitrarily ordain from before the foundation of the world that certain specific individual people would be lost is so far outside of the God of the Bible. His desire is for our salvation. That salvation requires our love for him, and love is only possible by free will be...

Beings that we choose that we choose to love, and we choose to come to God. God desires all to be saved, but we must be willing to come home to him. I think about Jesus' statement a couple of chapters earlier in chapter 13... Luke 13:34. Jesus says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

And you hear that and you think Jesus is gonna say, I'm gonna rain down fire and brimstone just like Sodom and Gomorrah. You killed the prophets. You reject those who were sent to you. You stone them with stones, and they were gonna put him on a cross. What is Jesus' statement?

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. I just wanted you to come home, but you were not willing. We must be willing. We must return. As Peter says in 2 Peter 3:9, God is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God wants us to come. And when we do, God is not waiting stoically to give us a lecture. Have you ever had that experience, ever been late to curfew? Raise your hand if you've been late to curfew. The great thing about Life three sixty now is you can see where they are.

You know? So you don't have that same level of worry about things. Right? But if you ever been late to curfew, you know, my dad at least was like this. Like, okay.

Where you been? Right? But God is not waiting stoically so that he can give us a lecture. He is looking compassionately and urgently so that he can bring us back into his home. He is running to meet us, and he is longingly looking down the road where we might come.

And the prodigal has his little speech prepared. Make me like one of your hired servants, he said. Wait. He doesn't even get to that part. Not really.

He comes to his father and he says, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. The last words that he says is son, and the father cuts him off because that's what he is. It's what he was. It's what he can be once more. He doesn't let him get to that last part because if we humble ourselves before God as servants, he knows our hearts, and he will make us his sons and heirs.

And maybe for the first time in his life, the prodigal really realizes how much his father loves him. Maybe for the first time, we put ourselves in the place of God here, and we realize how much God really loves us. All of his wayward, all of his prodigal children, God loves. And as we said this morning in bible class, we haven't even gotten to Jesus' primary point in the parable. That's found in verses 25-32 like we covered in bible class.

But what we have covered this morning in the lesson is the greatest secondary point of all time, and it's one that, in my judgment, needs to be preached in every audience, but maybe especially in an audience like this because I don't see a lot of scribes and pharisees here. I don't see a lot of people who are looking down on others and thinking they are superior. What we have in this room, if you look around you, what you see are a bunch of prodigal children who have chosen to come home and been restored by the father. And if you're here this morning and you are not yet a Christian, God created you in his image, and your place and your purpose are found back with him. And if you have started down this sequence as we all did to a sinner, what you have to see is that rock bottom is life without God, where you are truly and totally alone.

What makes heaven so great? We always talk about that. What makes heaven so great is that God is there. But you know what makes hell so awful is that God is not there and that there is no hope for restoration. The time is now, and the place is here.

For you to look around and see others who have come back to the father and know that that same opportunity, that same path is available to you if you will choose it. Because the father is looking down the road hoping that you are coming to him. Coming in humble submission, imitating Jesus Christ, saying, my purpose is not to be served but to serve. And in imitation of Jesus Christ, you can go down into a watery grave baptism that you might rise to walk in newness of life. If you've not come in total surrender to God to be made a servant so that he can make you a son, This room is not filled with a bunch of people who don't want you to be saved.

This room is filled with a bunch of people who will rejoice with the angels in heaven if you're willing to be saved by Jesus Christ. You're surrounded by people who've already been on this journey, who know this sequence well from son to sinner to swine to servant back to child and heir once more. And don't doubt how much God loves you and wants you to be saved. I'm a father, and there is nothing that I wouldn't do within my power to save my children and no party too grand to celebrate if they were saved. And I want you to think about one of Preston's favorite words is cosmic, and I've teased him a lot about that word and how I don't really like that word.

But the idea is the idea is everything in creation. Right? Not just the universe, but everything in creation. The physical realm, the spiritual realm. And maybe sometimes we shortchange what it looks like when somebody comes to be a Christian, to become a Christian.

We celebrate here. We make a line. Right? We come. We hug their neck and say, to the family of God.

But you know what else happens? Luke 15:7. But I say to you likewise that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just, quote, unquote, persons who need no repentance. Verse 10, likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. There is the father of all who rejoices, but he calls together all those who serve him that we all might celebrate at the restoration of one.

Will you be that one this morning? If you're not yet a Christian, will you become one? If you are a Christian and you've wandered off, once you come home, the angels will rejoice. The father, son, and holy spirit will rejoice, and we will rejoice with you too that you've been restored to the family of God. And if we can help you with that, even now, won't you come?

But together we stand and while we sing.