Luke 15:11-32 • Never Say Goodbye
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Saying goodbye can be really hard to do.
I think in my family, one of the hardest occasions, if not the hardest occasion of saying goodbye
is when my family was gathered into a holding cell to say goodbye to my brother before he was going to begin serving his sentence for a crime.
And my parents, being older, knew that this was probably the last time that they would see their son free.
What would you say if you were a father saying goodbye to your son the last time before he was going to prison, probably for the rest of your life?
The words that my father said were the words of the song that I ask you to sing right before this sermon.
As the hymns of our youth are often the words that we reach back in times of trial to claim, to strengthen our hearts and those that we love. The words that my father said to my brother, his wayward son were these.
When through the deep waters I cause thee to go, the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow.
For our God says I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
My father expressing a heavenly father's love, though you have gone astray and forsaken me,
I will never, no never, no never forsake you. I will not say goodbye. Not finally, not really. You are my son.
You are mine.
And I will not forsake you.
It's really so much of what a heavenly father is urging us to believe and to say in this passage that a heavenly father's love is modeling for us not just the love we should share but the love we should claim as well and yet so much in our hearts say could it really be the case that a heavenly father knowing our lives, our failures, our sins, our disappointments could say I will never say goodbye, never forsake you, knowing the worst about you. You are mine.
The paths, after all, of human departure from the father's love are well laid out for us in this passage. All the reasons that would give a heavenly father reason to say goodbye, we're done.
And all the reasons that the father from heaven says, but I will not ultimately, fully, finally say goodbye to you.
The path of human departure is described in three parables in Luke 15. I didn't read all of them to you but you may remember them. They are three parables of lostness, a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son. Each describing the personalities of those who in their different ways wander from the heavenly father and his love. First, a lost sheep is described. Do you remember that? It's in the very beginning of the parable.
Luke 15. "What man among you, having a hundred sheep if he's lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?"
A lost sheep is just lost by distraction, by its very nature. We don't think of a sheep as being rebellious or intentional. A lost sheep just kind of goes from clump of grass to clump of grass to clump of grass, not with real intent, not ever with real resolve, but just over time, wanders away in distraction from the things of the shepherd.
If you put it in a church context, those who are lost sheep are not the ones who make a big showing of their departure, but sometime in life you and I think back over those that we have known in the church and we have a conversation. We say to one another, "You know, whatever happened to so-and-so?"
And nobody knows for sure.
They just, without fanfare, without rebellion or show, just wandered away.
But those are not the only ones being described here. There are also the lost coins. You may remember that's the second parable the Lord tells, verse 8. "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?" A coin is not lost through any fault of its own, but through the negligence of another. And some people in the church that we recognize are lost coins. Already you've heard in this service that one of the delights of this church is the fact that these next weeks there will be the teen camp at which junior high or in high schools go off to camp. And I think so many of the experiences of my time with churches as well as a student and as a leader and as a pastor being one who went to teen camp. And I can remember particularly as a pastor being a speaker and a counselor at a camp in southern Illinois.
And one day, standing in line with other pastors for dinner and talking with a young woman who had wonderfully been blessed by the Lord at that camp, and we pastors were just rejoicing that her heart had warmed to the things of the gospel that she seemed to understand who the Lord Jesus was and His care for her. And just as we stood in that dinner line, I asked her, I said, "You know, Laura, what are you going to be doing this summer after camp?"
And Laura described the job that she would be following through with, a job in a particular movie theater.
And I and the other pastors knew the theater and the kinds of things that were shown there and knew how damaging it could be to her spiritually.
And so I said there, hopefully not just with courage but with care, "Laura, for your walk with Jesus, is that what you ought to be doing?"
And she said words more true than she knew.
She said, "Oh, it's okay.
My parents don't care."
Now she meant it one way, but the other truth was just as present.
Parents locked in a divorce battle that was consuming all of their energies had little to devote to her care.
And so with this job that was going to be so spiritually assaulting to their young daughter, they just didn't care.
Just a few years later, I met the same girl in a grocery store line.
Though it was just a few years later and she was 20, I must tell you she looked 40.
Already in her second marriage, brazen and hard and harsh, and I recognized in her a lost coin just by the negligence of others, not knowing the whisper of the sweetness of the gospel to touch her heart and put her in the paths of the found of the love of the Lord Jesus.
But of course, the last personality and waywardness that is described is not of one's loss by distraction or negligence, but those who wander away because of outright rebellion.
You know the story of the lost son, the prodigal that we read, and his rebellion is clear in so many ways. First, by the way that he asked for the property from his father. Do you remember verse 12 of chapter 15?
The younger of the son said to his father, "Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me," and he divided his property between them. For the son to ask for his inheritance from his father is in particularly in Jewish culture to say, "Father, I want what I deserve upon your death.
I want my legacy now, which is means, Father, I want what you can give me more than I desire your very life.
I value your money more than I value you."
But of course, the rebellion of the son is not evidence just in the way he asks, but in how he spends the money. You know that too, verse 13, "Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living."
The word "reckless" shades the immorality of how he is spending his money, but the angry older brother does not shade his words at all of how the money is actually spent. If you just let your eyes go down the passage to verse 30, you'll see how the money is spent.
The older brother says of the younger, "When this son of yours came, Father, he who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.
He asked for the money as though he desired his own father's death, and then he spent the money in immorality as though all he was taught by that father meant nothing to him."
And of course, how he responded to his crisis underscores it, perhaps most of all, the rebellion that's in the heart of the son. Remember verse 15?
This money all gone caused this to occur, verse 15, "So the son went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the fields to feed pigs."
Now, most of you know what that means.
For a Jewish young person, he knew the nature of pigs to his own Jewish tradition. What would a Jewish young man know about the nature of pigs? Not just that smell, you know, we know that. But for a Jewish young person in his religion, a pig would be what identified as what? What kind of an animal?
Unclean.
For this young man to try to rescue himself by caring for what his faith and family had identified as unclean and in essence sell himself into slavery to be rescued was to go back into Egypt to become a slave again to say everything that my faith tradition has stood for. I reject. I put myself back into the position of slavery. I do it through immorality, and I'm willing even to snub my nose at the very thing my father's faith says makes me right before God. He is in absolute rebellion before his father and faith. And I know these are in the terms of an ancient narrative, but we understand the terms as well, many of us, because we know the families of today who experience these very things, and maybe we are those families who have taught our children well.
And we know the Bible verses in our minds. Train up a child and the way should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from them. And we forget, this is a proverb, not a promise.
I mean, recognize what is being said in a proverb tends to be true, but it is not always true. These are words of wisdom that wise people lay to heart, but it does not mean it turns out right in every circumstance. You know the proverbs. A soft answer turns away wrath.
Is that a promise that as long as you speak softly to people, they won't get mad? Does that always happen? As long as you speak softly, people don't get mad? Does that always happen?
No. It's a wise saying, and wise people lay it to heart. But we abuse other people, sometimes our own consciences, when we take a proverb and make it a promise.
Recognize that what we are understanding in these scriptures, here is one of the wisest,
fathers in all of scripture, representing the heavenly father.
And yet both sons at some point become rebellious.
What are we to learn here?
That even when the children revolt and are revolting, it is our job representing the heavenly father to say, "I will never, no, never, no, never." For sake you.
What does a rebellious child look like for Kathy and me, one of the family's dearest to us in the world?
Adopted a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.
A child of different race. A child saved from a demographic of addictions.
Gave themselves in sacrifice over many years to the care of this child, only when he reached his middle and older teenage years to turn from everything of faith and family that they had so sacrificed to give him.
To make his money, he took up a life of gambling. He found that exciting.
But he did not always win.
And so to get more money to gamble, he sold himself so that he would continue to be able to afford the excitement.
Time and again, he would come home claiming, "I'll reject the life. I won't do that anymore."
And time and again, having gotten on his feet, he would do it again.
I will never, no, never, no, never forsake you.
What would it look like? It looks like the persistent love of a father. I'm not saying there is no tough love in this passage. There is, isn't there? A father allows a younger son to experience consequences of his rebellion. And an older brother is actually confronted with the wrongness of his words. But beneath the tough love is a persistent love that tells us even when a child has gone down paths of rebellion, there is the glory of a heavenly father who is persistent in an ultimate love that is, first of all, urgent in its expression. You know the urgency of the love. It comes in so many different expressions here. Verse 4, how do we know the urgency of a love?
Jesus says in verse 4, "What man of you, having a hundred sheep if he's lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one he lost until he finds it?" Can you perceive it?
This love of the father is so urgent that he will leave ninety-nine secure sheep to put the priority on the lost sheep.
It's really the same message that comes with the lost coin. Verse 8, "The woman having ten silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it." Shehaean has property that's in greater number to hold on to, but she becomes urgent for the one that is lost. But perhaps the most wonderful expression of an urgent love is verse 20. As you read of the young son now returning, and in verse 20, "He arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him." Do you get it? Do you hear it?
The son is still a long way off, which means the father has not heard the confession yet. And still the father, when he sees his son in need, coming back, he runs to him.
That's the urgency of a father for a child in whatever condition or lostness or rebellion is expressed.
I think of it, you know, in a few weeks, Kathy and I are looking forward that we will just have that little time chopped out in our lives where we have some vacation together. And the place where we go since we have, since our children have been young, is we have a cabin in the woods of Missouri. And when our children were younger and, you know, we were just learning to give them some freedom, I can remember one day walking down our long gravel driveway to another road that connected to a lake.
And I started out with three kids, you know, the nine-year-old, the seven-year-old, the five-year, you know, we're going in it. And at some point, you know, the middle child as we were going up our long driveway said, "I forgot to go to the bathroom, so I need to go back." So I said to the older son, "Take your little sister and take her down to the lake. I'm taking your brother back to the house first."
I took the brother back to the house.
We went back up the driveway afterwards, went to the lake.
No older brother, no little sister.
Now parents, what begins to happen to my heart?
Where are they? Where are they? The feeling of panic, of fear, the urgency, where are they? Are they in the water somewhere?
Are they in the woods somewhere?
What was the purpose of that older car that just passed a few minutes ago?
Picked up the middle boy and ran back to the house, ran up the driveway again, ran down to the lake again, ran back up the road again, only to find the older brother and sister coming back. They had just turned the wrong way.
But you know urgency there, don't you, parents?
That's my child. He may have done wrong. He turned the wrong—but my heart is for my child. I of course want to say, "How did you do that?"
Because he was lost for the moment.
And what we're learning here is even as the lostness is the child's own fault, the love of a heavenly Father is persistent. There is an urgency to it because ultimately it is a gracious love. It is not dependent upon the actions of the child. It is dependent upon the heart of the Father for this gracious love to be expressed. Think of how this is being said. The Father runs for his child. He hasn't heard the confession yet. Now because you've heard this story so often, you may not recognize how shocking it would be to this Jewish audience that's listening. Now just think of it.
Here is an older, wealthy Jewish Father.
He sees his son still a long way off and he runs—he doesn't wait for the son to come close. He doesn't wait for the son to come and say his words if I'm sorry I was wrong. The Father just runs. Can you picture him? Okay, long white robe going all the way down and past his ankles. All right? He's got sandals on his feet. He's got a turban on his head. He's got—because he's wealthy, he's got gold chains around his neck. And now what does this father—he's probably overweight at this age.
And he starts running. So what is he—does he have to kind of lift up his robes and tie them around his waist so that his bony legs and his apple tummy show, you know? And he's running and the sandals are flopping against his heels and against his chest and the turban is going back and forth in the wind. And who does this actually represent?
God!
This is God humiliating himself in behalf of a rebellious child who has sinned against him, walked away from him, rejected family and faith, and here is the love of God the Father running after him. The poet long ago said it simply this way, "The robe, the shoes, the ring, all for him unworthy son, but sweeter still the most amazing thing."
God ran to meet him.
Here we see God run.
It's the amazing expression of a divine love, urgent and gracious for a son, a child who needs to be loved despite his own rebellion. It is teaching us the nature, not just of an urgent love, but of a gracious love. So many ways this is said. Verse 5, how is gracious love expressed? The shepherd when he finds the sheep in verse 5, remember? He lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing as though the sheep comes back not in its own strength but because of the strength of the shepherd.
And if you'll continue just to think about the nature of the coin, verse 8, the woman having ten silver coins, does she not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? The sheep is returned through no strength of his own.
The coin is found through no effort of its own.
And what about the son?
Verse 20, as the father runs to meet him and has not even heard the confession yet,
you know that the son is received through no deserving of his own.
The security comes despite the squandering into squalor.
Favor is shown despite insult to family and faith. And ultimately there is rejoicing despite the fact that the child has been ruined by his own actions, rebellion, negligence, and foolishness.
How do we see it? Our own lives may help to explain.
Kathy and I, again, have friends a couple and the couple once expressed to us how her older brother was coming home from some time in a city far away, and the older brother was going to be riding on a train, and so the father went to meet the brother at the train.
And the brother was flamboyant and undisciplined. And so as the father was standing on the platform with a number of other people, there was this younger man who got off the train wearing a big black floppy hat, tall, ungainly fat, pockmarked in the face, long black robe off his shoulders with black clothes all the way down, and a man on the platform said to the father, "Aren't you glad that's not your son?"
At which point the father walked forward and embraced his son and kissed him.
You're mine.
It is the gracious love that is not waiting to make things right, but simply says, "My heart reaches out to you." Though it must be tough love at times, nonetheless, it is the love of grace that says, "Not because of what is in you, but because of what the father has planted in me, I will love you."
Do you see it? It's the old message again. If we say, "Where's the glory in these parables?" The glory, of course, is in the love of the father.
Where is the grace in the parables?
It is in the persistence of the father.
But we've said glory leads to grace, leads to mission.
Where is mission here? How are we to respond?
You know, there's first the mission of our own heart. It's that of verse 18.
The younger son in all of his sins says, "I will arise and go to my father." Why?
Because even his hired men are in a better spot than I am. Here is that wonderful message of the gospel always. It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance, Romans 2.4, that ultimately is understanding how great is the love of God for the undeserving that causes us to turn from a path of rebellion and selfishness and foolishness and come back to the father because we have understood how urgent and gracious is his love. Finally, we are willing to turn from our path and come back. And the calling on each of our hearts if we are the rebellious son is to return to the father. That's our mission.
But that's not the only mission because it's not the only son in view. There is another son in this passage beyond the younger son, isn't there?
It is the older brother.
You may remember that there are Pharisees and scribes in verse 1 of Luke 15 who were upset with Jesus. He's eating with certain people. Who is Jesus eating with that the Pharisees and the scribes don't like? Who is Jesus eating with?
The sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and the Pharisees, the religious holy people of the time don't like it that Jesus, a religious leader, is extending the reach of the love of the father to those who are undeserving.
And the real representation of them in this passage, of course, is the older brother. Remember, he is the one who gets angry that the love of the father is extended. But what does the father say to express the mission of older brothers, of those who are religious and longer in the church? It's verse 32. The very last words of the parable in chapter. "It was fitting," says the father, "to celebrate and be glad. For this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found." Don't you understand? Here's the joy. Here is the mission. It is to rejoice in the reach, to say, "I'm reaching out to your brother. I'm reaching out to another." You should be rejoicing in that. Now, you recognize, of course, that the older brother won't do it because he's not getting his own way or his own reward. And all of us, all of us, are willing to say, "I'm glad I'm not like that." Aren't you glad you're not like the older brother?
You think that's why this is in the Bible? So that you would be glad you're not like the older brother?
Let me tell you the difference.
Religious people are like the older brother often.
They are faithful because to them their faith is useful.
You want to see it? Look at how this older brother speaks of his actions and reactions to the father. Verse 28, "The older brother was angry and refused to go into the celebration. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, "Look, these many years I have served you. I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends."
Has he been devoted to his father?
Yes. Has he been obedient?
Yes.
Why?
Because he found his faith to be useful to him, it's what he wanted.
He did not recognize that ultimately what his father wanted was to express his heart to others.
You recognize that the only religious by their faith useful, the truly redeemed find the faith beautiful.
You know how you express that this week? Think of this again.
Six hundred and eighty children at Vacation Bible School and four hundred and eleven of you served them. It wasn't useful for you. You joined in the reach. Your reach, it wasn't for you, it was for their sake that you were extending the heart of the father. It's the nature of the gospel that you're saying, "I'm not just serving because it's useful. I find my faith beautiful."
And so I want to share it.
We can see it when it's expressed so well. Sometimes it's hard to see ourselves, however, as older brothers when we don't portray ourselves so well. Let me tell you my own experience when I became an older brother and didn't even recognize it. A few years ago, my father, who I've said to you before, lay Baptist minister who serves in small churches. My growing up experience was not like this church. My father's churches were basically just one room, little churches, and 30 or 40 people gathered.
And, sorry, Kristin, no organ. Sorry Scott, no guitars.
None of that. It was worship without accompaniment and traditional songs.
And as I began to minister in very different settings, one day my father came to visit.
And it was on a day when I was going to be preaching at a very large contemporary service church. And I thought, "Well, here's a chance to impress my father.
I'm going to go preach at a big church, and I will take my father along to see."
Now as I went to that church, let me tell you. It was all trailblazers and blue jeans and t-shirts and young people, and the music was not exactly what my father grew up with.
And as I stood beside him and the music washed over us, I saw my father just lost, just not able to join in and worship and be a part of things. It just wasn't part of his time in his place.
And I recognized what I had done was sought something useful for myself and not really thought of my father.
You know, something very sweet happened at the end of that service. A man who was my father's pure age, who had known my father for many years, was in that service too.
And he saw my father kind of at a loss during the service and not participating. And so at the end of the service, this other older man walked over to my father who is named Waymon, and he said to my father, "Waymon, I hate the music too, but look at the young people," he said.
And he was rejoicing in the reach.
Though he confessed it was not useful to him.
Now if all you hear in that is great advocacy for contemporary music, you haven't heard me all the way.
Because what I'm saying to you is this.
When I forgot about the needs of my father, I became the older brother too.
What was useful to me was not helpful to him.
In the church, what we are always about is serving one another for the sake of the beauty of the gospel.
How might I reach to you and you to me? We are not here because the faith is to be useful to us. We are here to express the beauty of the gospel to one another. However we must bend and sacrifice and reach for the sake of the gospel, we want people to understand how beautiful it is. And so we serve one another with the heart of a father who is reaching out, not just grasping self. But what is the beauty of the gospel that is so much on display here? You know, long before Tony, Orlando, and Dawn ever made the song about Yellow Ribbon famous,
there was a theologian named Charles Hodge who told a similar wonderful story. Here's what he said.
He said there was once a young man who committed a crime that led to him being sent to prison.
And while he was in prison, his mother's grief and hurt led to a broken heart and her own death.
At some point he'd served his time and so it was released.
And he wrote a letter to his father.
The letter to the father said, "Dad, I'm going to be taking the train home."
And as the train goes past our house in the backyard as the apple tree, "If you want me to come home, would you just tie a white flag on the apple tree?"
And as the train passes, if the flag isn't there, I'll understand and I'll just stay on the train and keep going.
At his release, the young man got on the train and as Charles Hodge would tell the story, as each mile got closer, the anticipation would grow. As they turned the last curves with the tracks and the wheels rose the heartbeat of the young man. Would it be there? Would it be there? Would it be there? Would the flag be there? And finally the last curve was turned and what was on the tree, not one flag, but dozens of flags. As a father said, "I will never, no, never, no, never forsake you. You are mine and I will not finally say goodbye."
It's the beauty of the gospel, not just for others. It's what our own hearts need to claim.
The fatten calf, the shoes, the robes, the ring, all for me unworthy son, but far beyond and sweeter still is this truth.
For me the father runs.
I see God run. It was not a flag he put upon a tree. It was his own son and blood in the person of Jesus Christ. As for my sin, he gave himself for me and for you.
The fatten calf, the shoes, the robe, the ring, all for me unworthy son, but sweeter still the most amazing thing God runs to meet me and you. We see God run. This is the beauty of the gospel for which we live and which we share for one another. May God so enable us to see it again so that our hearts broken in humility serve one another in love. This God who runs to us that we as a church might run to others and see the beauty and the wonder of the father of grace.