Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tonight at church, I am speaking a little bit about Christmas and the story of the Prodigal Son.
I am sure you are wondering, what does the Prodigal Son have to do with Christmas, and I would say everything!
Let me start by saying the story of the Prodigal son is a special one because its one of those 3 for 1 deals. With one story, you get three applications. We see that there are three characters, the father, son, and a brother and with each character, there is an application. We see a story of the son’s EGO, life of sin, and then repentance. We see the father’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace. Then there is the brother’s who is angry and jealous that the father has so readily taken back the brother. Tonight, we are going to look at the story of reconciliation between the son and the father. And that’s why this story is important to Christmas. It’s a beautiful story of reconciliation and of a metaphor or parable of God the father, and mankind, which includes all of us.
My favorite Christmas song is Hark the herald Angle Sing, because of the line, “ God and sinners reconcile.”
It’s that line right there that is the good news we proclaim as Christians.
Lets look at the word reconcile for a moment.
The word reconcile means a couple of different things.
The dictionary defines reconcile as “case to co-exist in harmony; make or show to be compatible or to no longer appose.”
Try this definition on for size. How about “ to fix what is broke…”
So what’s broke? Well in the story we just read, we see that the father and son’s relationship has broke. So you understand how serious of a deal this was, let me explain some of the context. This isn’t a story of a son asking his dad for 100 bucks and staying gone all weekend. This is so much bigger than that. When the son asked his father for his inheritance in advanced, be basically wished his father dead. You are dead to me, so give me what I have coming is pretty much what the actions of the son spoke here. The son has shown complete disrespect, selfishness, and greed. We see first hand through the story what self-will run riot looks like. Surprisingly, the father grants the son his request and gives him his inheritance, then the son leaves. And what does he do with his money; he spent it on “wild living”.
By today’s standards of wild living, I think of Tiger Woods. Think of everything we learned about Tiger this last year and his escapades, and I think that Tiger’s once secret lifestyle is not too different from the Son’s.
During the course of time that the son was out living life in the fast lane, boozing, and eating at all of the best restaurants, chasing women, and gambling, he has no contact with his father. Why should he? He wished his father dead so that he could take his inheritance. The relationship that once was is not completely broken.
Let me pause there for a second and point out another relationship that was broken and that story is in Genesis chapter 3. See, after God made earth, and all of the animals and mankind, Adam and Eve, he said it was Very good. And He had a relationship with Adam and Eve and would walk amongst them in the garden. They had a direct line to the Creator. They had a perfect relationship with God. They were in harmony with God and did not appose Him, that was until the serpent shows up on the scene. And we know, as the story goes, Eve eats from the tree and then has Adam eat, and immediately their relationship with God was forever changed. They were once naked and unashamed, but now, they run and hide and cover themselves. Of course, God is not happy about this, and because God is pure and holy he cannot be in a relationship with sin. Which is what Adam and Eve brought upon themselves.
The bible tells us that God is a loving and kind; however, he is also just and in Him there is no darkness. 1st John 4:8 reads God is Love, with that in mind, let me read you a quote from a Thomas Thaherne, a priest and private Chaplin, in the later part of the 1600s and also a favorite writer of C.S. Lewis. Thomas Thaherne writes:
Love can forbear and Love can forgive…but Love can NEVER be reconciled to an unlovely object...He therefore, can never be reconciled to your sin, because sin cannot be altered; but he may be reconciled to your person, because that my be restored.
There we have it people. Because God cannot reconcile to Sin and because of man’s EGO (Which really stands for Edging God Out), the relationship between man and God was broken. Thankfully, there is a remedy and path for reconciliation.
Did you catch that part within the quote that says “God me be reconciled to the Person, because that may be restored”? And we know that we can only be restored through our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to become restored because of the ultimate Christmas gift God gave to us, Jesus Christ. We now have a pathway for reconciliation with God. Sure, the relationship is not like the one Adam and Eve initially had with God, but we have a secured hope in the end, that when we join the father, we will again see Him and live again in complete harmony with the mighty creator, spending eternity basking in His glory and worshiping Him.
On a side note, I want to address some poor theology and that is that some people believe that God sent Jesus as a plan “B” because mankind was a failed experiment. That we messed things up so bad, that God had to revise His game plan, which is absolutely not true. God knew all along how all of this was going to play out. This is His story. He has written it from beginning to end. He is omnipresent. He was in the beginning and in the end. He knew what He was doing and it was always part of the plan. And what is so mind-blowing, and humbling is that God has written each of us into His story. There is a problem though, and that is we are constantly trying to highjack His story and make it our own story, were we become the main character and that it’s all about us.
EGO. (Edging God out).
As we go back to the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that son eventually lost everything. I imagine he had a hole in his heart the whole time he had departed from his Father, which he tried harder and harder to fill with fleshly desires. And then he hit rock bottom, and he hit it hard. We can all relate to being hungry, but I can’t say I have ever been so hungry that I longed to eat the pig slop. With no more money to spend on things that would temporarily numb his emptiness, let along feed himself, he decided to humbled himself and returned to his father, asking for forgiveness and to give him a job as a servant. And we read that “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.” And “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.”
Reconciliation… what was once broken has been fixed; restored and placed back into harmony.
Now, there is a little bit more to the idea of reconciliation and we read about it in
2nd Corinthians 5:18-19:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
I am sure you are wondering, what does the Prodigal Son have to do with Christmas, and I would say everything!
Let me start by saying the story of the Prodigal son is a special one because its one of those 3 for 1 deals. With one story, you get three applications. We see that there are three characters, the father, son, and a brother and with each character, there is an application. We see a story of the son’s EGO, life of sin, and then repentance. We see the father’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace. Then there is the brother’s who is angry and jealous that the father has so readily taken back the brother. Tonight, we are going to look at the story of reconciliation between the son and the father. And that’s why this story is important to Christmas. It’s a beautiful story of reconciliation and of a metaphor or parable of God the father, and mankind, which includes all of us.
My favorite Christmas song is Hark the herald Angle Sing, because of the line, “ God and sinners reconcile.”
It’s that line right there that is the good news we proclaim as Christians.
Lets look at the word reconcile for a moment.
The word reconcile means a couple of different things.
The dictionary defines reconcile as “case to co-exist in harmony; make or show to be compatible or to no longer appose.”
Try this definition on for size. How about “ to fix what is broke…”
So what’s broke? Well in the story we just read, we see that the father and son’s relationship has broke. So you understand how serious of a deal this was, let me explain some of the context. This isn’t a story of a son asking his dad for 100 bucks and staying gone all weekend. This is so much bigger than that. When the son asked his father for his inheritance in advanced, be basically wished his father dead. You are dead to me, so give me what I have coming is pretty much what the actions of the son spoke here. The son has shown complete disrespect, selfishness, and greed. We see first hand through the story what self-will run riot looks like. Surprisingly, the father grants the son his request and gives him his inheritance, then the son leaves. And what does he do with his money; he spent it on “wild living”.
By today’s standards of wild living, I think of Tiger Woods. Think of everything we learned about Tiger this last year and his escapades, and I think that Tiger’s once secret lifestyle is not too different from the Son’s.
During the course of time that the son was out living life in the fast lane, boozing, and eating at all of the best restaurants, chasing women, and gambling, he has no contact with his father. Why should he? He wished his father dead so that he could take his inheritance. The relationship that once was is not completely broken.
Let me pause there for a second and point out another relationship that was broken and that story is in Genesis chapter 3. See, after God made earth, and all of the animals and mankind, Adam and Eve, he said it was Very good. And He had a relationship with Adam and Eve and would walk amongst them in the garden. They had a direct line to the Creator. They had a perfect relationship with God. They were in harmony with God and did not appose Him, that was until the serpent shows up on the scene. And we know, as the story goes, Eve eats from the tree and then has Adam eat, and immediately their relationship with God was forever changed. They were once naked and unashamed, but now, they run and hide and cover themselves. Of course, God is not happy about this, and because God is pure and holy he cannot be in a relationship with sin. Which is what Adam and Eve brought upon themselves.
The bible tells us that God is a loving and kind; however, he is also just and in Him there is no darkness. 1st John 4:8 reads God is Love, with that in mind, let me read you a quote from a Thomas Thaherne, a priest and private Chaplin, in the later part of the 1600s and also a favorite writer of C.S. Lewis. Thomas Thaherne writes:
Love can forbear and Love can forgive…but Love can NEVER be reconciled to an unlovely object...He therefore, can never be reconciled to your sin, because sin cannot be altered; but he may be reconciled to your person, because that my be restored.
There we have it people. Because God cannot reconcile to Sin and because of man’s EGO (Which really stands for Edging God Out), the relationship between man and God was broken. Thankfully, there is a remedy and path for reconciliation.
Did you catch that part within the quote that says “God me be reconciled to the Person, because that may be restored”? And we know that we can only be restored through our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to become restored because of the ultimate Christmas gift God gave to us, Jesus Christ. We now have a pathway for reconciliation with God. Sure, the relationship is not like the one Adam and Eve initially had with God, but we have a secured hope in the end, that when we join the father, we will again see Him and live again in complete harmony with the mighty creator, spending eternity basking in His glory and worshiping Him.
On a side note, I want to address some poor theology and that is that some people believe that God sent Jesus as a plan “B” because mankind was a failed experiment. That we messed things up so bad, that God had to revise His game plan, which is absolutely not true. God knew all along how all of this was going to play out. This is His story. He has written it from beginning to end. He is omnipresent. He was in the beginning and in the end. He knew what He was doing and it was always part of the plan. And what is so mind-blowing, and humbling is that God has written each of us into His story. There is a problem though, and that is we are constantly trying to highjack His story and make it our own story, were we become the main character and that it’s all about us.
EGO. (Edging God out).
As we go back to the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that son eventually lost everything. I imagine he had a hole in his heart the whole time he had departed from his Father, which he tried harder and harder to fill with fleshly desires. And then he hit rock bottom, and he hit it hard. We can all relate to being hungry, but I can’t say I have ever been so hungry that I longed to eat the pig slop. With no more money to spend on things that would temporarily numb his emptiness, let along feed himself, he decided to humbled himself and returned to his father, asking for forgiveness and to give him a job as a servant. And we read that “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.” And “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.”
Reconciliation… what was once broken has been fixed; restored and placed back into harmony.
Now, there is a little bit more to the idea of reconciliation and we read about it in
2nd Corinthians 5:18-19:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
