I Can't Love ________?
Everybody Always • Sermon • Submitted
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Intro
Intro
*READ passage w/emphasis and FEELING
Idea: I can’t love _________ because of _________________.
Idea: I can’t love _________ because of _________________.
Pray
They found the security they needed to make sense of their world by putting—and keeping---people in their places. This served to preserve social and ethnic distinctions and to safeguard their positions of power and privilege.
Context: The Jewish leadership downright hated Jesus and that is b/c felt that they had God all figured out. From various passages from the OT, they assumed that God wanted clear-cut social boundaries in place between Jews and Gentiles, between “good” Jews (Pharisees and priestly elites) and “bad” Jews (tax collectors and sinners), between men and women, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, etc. They found the security they needed to make sense of their world by putting—and keeping---people in their places. It also served to preserve social and ethnic distinctions and to safeguard their positions of power and privilege.
As a result, these actions automatically excluded a whole lot of people from blessings—both spiritual and material—that God intended them to have with the coming of Jesus the Messiah.
What Jesus did is began to teach us what God is like by dismantling these boundaries between people. He began to warmly receive marginalized individuals like tax collectors and prostitutes/sinners, outcasts of Jewish society, much to the disgust of the religious establishment. And this is exactly what we find Jesus doing in where we find our passage today.
found the security they needed to make sense of their world by putting—and keeping---people in their places. This served to preserve social and ethnic distinctions and to safeguard their positions of power and privilege.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus then goes on to teach three parables.
The Parable of the Lost Coin - God’s care and concern for those lost within the house
The Parable of the Lost Sheep - God’s care and concern for those lost in the world
3. The Lost Son
Here we find Jesus rejected by the religious leaders of Israel, Pharisees and teachers of the law, while being accepted by the outcasts of society. Much to the disgust of the religious leaders, Jesus associated
Here we find Jesus rejected by the religious leaders of Israel, Pharisees and teachers of the law, while being accepted by the outcasts of society. Much to the disgust of the religious leaders, Jesus associated
Lost Sheep, Lost Coin
Transition: We are going to focus our attention on the third parable, the Parable of the Lost Son/Prodigal Son. It begins with...
I. Rejection
I. Rejection
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.
Step back and look at New Testament world perspective:
The group took priority over the individual (Individual vs. Western cultures)
A person’s most important group was his family
Son requested his share of the estate—his inheritance—was a very selfish + rude request
Normally, not divided and given to heirs until the father could no longer manage it well
The Father consented without protest and gives him his share of the inheritance
Transition: Son lacked the wisdom to use his inheritance wisely. Instead, he sadly spent all he had on...
II. Reckless Living
II. Reckless Living
“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.
Luke 15:
Squandered - Not poor business choices but poor life choices
Not always inside + out, sometimes outside “blessed” and inside broken
2. Life left him Left him feeling empty and broken
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.
Life lived for himself left him empty and broken (both inside and outside)
Life living for ourselves (American Dream - direct contradiction to the life of the Gospel)
Items in and of themselves as empty
Not always inside + out, sometimes outside “blessed” and inside broken
Not always inside + out, sometimes outside “blessed” and inside broken
“Feed pigs” = As a Jew, he could have stooped no lower
“No one gave him anything” = Where were the people he squandered his wealth with in wild living?
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants 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. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants 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. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 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.
“When he came to his senses”
He fully expected to be hired by his father
John A. Martin, “Luke,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 245.He found himself
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 servants 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. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 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.
God is good and He sometimes displays His goodness by allowing us to get to the end of ourselves, so we realize that we need Him AND other (REPEAT)
:14-
He fully expected to be hired by his father
Saw himself as unworthy to be a part of his Father’s house again
III. Restoration
III. Restoration
Luke 15:20-
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.’
Mercy comes running
Mercy comes running
All the son could see was the sin that he was carrying
All the Father was looking at was the son He loved
This is the real turning point in the story - Father embraces the Son
The Prodigal could have devised the greatest repentance plan know to man and still been rightly shunned by the Father
The key moment is the Father’s embrace
The real change in the prodigal - both his change of status and of heart - happens in the arms of the Father. That’s where repentance occurs.
“Imagine yourself in those arms. You may have bene sorry before, by now you loathe yourself - yet you can’t escape his love. You had thought you stank in the pig sty, now you feel your stench to the core - yet you are held close. You had composed a repentance speech, now your awareness of sin overwhelms—but you’re enfolded in His grace.”
“But 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.
2.
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.’ “But 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.
Grace is love even when we don’t deserve it
Luke 15:20-
Through the Gospel, everyone is welcomed home. God cares that his son/daughter is home!
He is going to invest in them b/c some of them are going to come back home. You can be lost in a pew and never really be a part of what it means to be home.
Everyone is welcomed home. God cares that our sons are home! He is going to invest in them b/c some of them are going to come back home You can be lost in a pew and never really be a part of what it means to be home. Jesus is saying to them, I am here for you and I am here for them. Jesus wants everyone to come home!
Jesus is saying to them, I am here for you and I am here for them. Jesus wants everyone to come home!
Application: If this is you! You can be accepted by Christ.
Transition: However, let’s keep looking at the story...
IV. The Point
IV. The Point
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
The older brother was doing what he had done day after day since his brother’s departure
Millennials
Brother’s Rejection of him
Among those who belong to the same generation in Bible times, the closest family tie was not the contractual relationship between husband and wife.
In the NT world the closest family bond was the bond between siblings - blood ran deeper than romantic love (marriages)
It wasn’t just the Father that was rejected by the Prodigal son but the brother as well
Natural Response - lost Son in the house (Parable of the Lost Coin)
Life living for ourselves (American Dream)
Comparison - the thief of joy
“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 and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
Not always inside + out, sometimes outside “blessed” and inside broken
Comparison - the thief of joy
Luke 15:28-
We can say, we can’t love _________ b/c they have done _____________ and I haven’t!
Ungrateful for what he did have
“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are 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 is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”
Had the Father
Had the inheritance
Application: For some of you, you might find youself relating to the older Son, the Son lost within the house. Struggling to love:
Someone who is blessed “more than you”, sometimes despite how they live
Someone who is doing wrong and is still blessed “more than you”
Why do the wicked prosper?
But what do you have Christian?
You have God - “you are always with me”
Jesus as Savior - …adopt
God as Father
Jesus as Savior
Spirit - Guide, comfort and strength You
Family - To walk alongside you
Word - Wisdom from the mind of God
You have an inheritance in Christ that “can never perish, spoil or fade…kept in Heaven for you” ()
This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through
So, if we can not say: I can’t love _______________ b/c _________________
Instead say, “ I can love ___________, so that they can experience this, AMEN!
Conclusion
Conclusion
So, if we can not say: I can’t love _______________ b/c _________________
Instead say, “ I can love ___________, so that they can experience this, AMEN!
Go back into your communities, your streets, your families, your places of work and love people like Jesus love you! Love your neighbor as you love yourself, love your enemy, love people not for who they are or what they do but because Jesus loves them. May Jesus Church in our region, through your example, be known more and more as a people that loves everybody always.