Father Of Mercy And Grace

By 

John C. Orlando, Jr.

Covenant Presbyterian Church, Abilene TX     

28 November 2004 

Scripture:  Luke 15:11-32

Background:  We find in verse 1 of chapter 15 that all of the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus.  While we today may think this to be no big deal, we must understand just how radical this was, and how radical Jesus’ actions were. Jesus goes against all of the cultural norms of His day, and reaches out to the outcasts and dregs of society.  When the Pharisees and scribes saw this, they began to grumble.  Jesus then proceeds to address them specifically with three parables: the parable of the Lost Sheep, the parable of the Lost Coin, and the parable that we will examine, the parable of the Lost Son. The vivid tragedy of lostness recurs throughout the three parables, but ultimately it is the mercy and grace of God that are in view, and the Heavenly joy which follows the finding of the precious objects that serves as the primary theme in each one.

Intro

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year.  We gather together with family and friends, and have a celebration where we prepare a great feast and stuff ourselves with delicious food until we can barely move, and we give thanks for all of the many blessings in our lives.

But what makes Thanksgiving so special is not all of the great food we eat, or even being with our family and friends; what makes Thanksgiving so special is the One to whom we are giving thanks to, the Lord God Almighty.  And while we are thankful to God for all of the temporal blessings in our lives He has given us (health, material possessions, safety), we realize that the ultimate reason we are thankful is because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

You see, as Christians, we understand just how perilous our condition was.  The Bible tells us that we were sinners without hope, and we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.

But God, according to the riches of His grace alone, sent His One only Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life of obedience, and to lay down His life upon a Roman cross, where He paid the full penalty for all of our sins, and then rose bodily from grave three days later.  And everyone who turns from their sins and calls upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. 

As Christians, we rejoice and give thanks for all of this, as we celebrate the incredible mercy and grace of God that has been bestowed upon us.  We realize that we were, as the prodigal son in our text this morning, dead, but we have been made alive in Christ.  We were lost, but now, in Christ, we are found.

And as we turn our attention to our text this morning, let us first look then at…

I.  The Lost Son

A.  He Leaves Home (V. 12-13):  We don’t know why the son wanted to leave, just that he wanted to, and we can get a sense of the rebellious mindset of this son by noticing:   

                        1.  He doesn’t ask his father for the inheritance, he tells the father to give him what he wants. He just wants to do what he wants to do in his own way.    

2.  He couldn’t leave fast enough: “…and not many days later…” (v. 13a)

                        3.  He went as far away as he could get; he went to a distant country.  In a distant country he would be altogether free from his father, and there would be no one there who would know him.  No one could tell him what to do.

Well, he got what he wanted, but things didn't turn out quite as well as he thought:

B.  The Consequences (V. 13-16): Things couldn’t possibly get any worse!  He had it all, then lost it all, and was forced to endure the most humiliating experience imaginable.  And it isn’t so much that he lost it all, it is that he squandered it all on loose living.  He wanted to go for the gusto, to live life to the full, to deny himself nothing. He squandered it on gratifying the desires and passions of the flesh…on temporal experience. And now his situation was absolutely hopeless, and it was all by his own foolish doing.  He made his own bed, and now he was sleeping in it. 

For you young people and teenagers here today, don’t let this happen to you. Don’t decide to go to the pigpen to see if it really does stink.  Take my word for it, it does!  But more than taking my word for it, take God’s word for it. The Bible says “the way of a transgressor is hard,” and “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”  I can look back over my own life and see the unwise choices and mistakes, the consequences of which, in some cases, I still live with even today. 

You know, there is an old saying “Father knows best.” I’ve come to discover that in general that is usually true. It may not make sense to you right now, it may even irritate and frustrate you, but your parents know what will benefit you, and what will not. 

They are bringing you up in the admonition and fear of the Lord, because they understand that our Heavenly Father knows best 100% of the time, and the ultimate intention is to teach you to take hold of Christ for yourself because you can’t ride on the coattails of your parent’s faith.

You need to trust Christ for yourself, both for eternal life, and the power to live day by day because your parents can’t be with you in every situation, but Christ can, and when you are out there, and are feeling the weight of peer pressure, you can stand upon Christ, the Rock of your salvation and the author and finisher of your faith, and not end up in the pigpen.

Well, eventually, we discover that the prodigal finally:

            C.  Comes to his senses (V.17-19) – Everything he had done prior to this was manifestly irrational.  He finally saw just how rotten his condition was, and then he marveled at just how good he had it with his father.  Even the hired men of his father had more than enough to eat, yet here he was, the father’s own son, and he was starving to death! Not only that, he realizes the depth of his sin:  "I have sinned against Heaven and earth." .  He understands that he had sinned against his father.  He decides to go to his father, and will request to be made one of his father servants.

            1.  What a vivid illustration of the effects of sin upon us.  Sin is manifestly irrational.  It warps everything about us: our mind, our emotions, our will…everything. 

            2.  The Apostle Paul gives us a glimpse into how profound sin has warped the human condition in Romans 1:18-25.  God has clearly made His existence known through the awesome spectacle of creation:  whether it is the vast expanse of the heavens, or the incredible complexity of the universe that can only be seen through the power of a microscope, it all screams that there is a God who is infinite, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, holy and wise. 

Yet, instead of glorifying God and enjoy Him forever, we all exchanged the glory of God for a lie, and went out into the pigpen of our own sin, doing that which was right in our own eyes, and as such, we were all under the condemnation of God, having violated His Law.  And even though He comes to us in the Person of His Son, lives the perfect life we could never live, and dies in our place to give us eternal through faith alone, we still reject God and His salvation. 

Our only hope is that we, like the prodigal son, come to our senses. It is not told to us what it was the eventually brought the prodigal son to his senses.  However, the Bible makes it clear that the way any of us ever comes to our senses is by God’s sovereign grace alone.  By God’s grace, He enables us to get out of the pigpen by removing our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh.  He gives us eyes to see our utter spiritual poverty, and to see the riches of the kingdom God, and to go to Him for forgiveness. 

II. The Mercy and Grace of the Father (V. 20)

    A.  The father doesn’t relate to this wayward son on the basis of law, but on the basis of mercy and grace.  He doesn’t set up a bunch of things that the son must do in order for him to have fellowship with him. Unfortunately, this is not the case with us in many of our relationships.   Illustration:  Story of the Father and daughter that have been estranged from each other for many years.  The daughter sought to have the relationship restored, but the father refused to receive her back unless she first did certain things (the father was a Christian and demanded that the daughter become the kind of Christian he was).

How different is the father in our text this morning!    Just at the mere sight of this wretch—of this one who caused so much pain and did so much that was wrong, the father is overwhelmed with compassion, mercy and grace, and runs out to meet him!  And before the son can even say anything, he commands for his servants to make ready for a celebration!  The son is just standing there—he didn’t do anything in order to be restored.  The Father did it all: the father saw the son in the distance.  The father ran to the son.  The father embraced the son. The father kissed the son.  The father called for great celebration to take place.

This is what mercy and grace are all about.

B.  Mercy -  The father showed mercy in the fact that since this son left his father and squandered his inheritance, by rights the father did not have to allow this son back into his house. By rights he could require the son to make amends for all of the grief he caused him. Instead of these things, the father is driven by heart of compassion, and instead of giving the son the anger and displeasure he so richly deserves, and imposing a list of things that the son must do first before the relationship could be restored, he shows mercy to his son.

C.  Grace - And we see the grace of the father toward the son in Verse 22.  He shows grace by giving the son everything that he does not deserve: he receives the best robe, he is given a ring and sandals are placed on his feet, and there is a celebration is called for!

This is how it is in salvation.  God does it all.  He runs to us.  He embraces us and lavishes His love upon us, and it is all by mercy and grace alone. 

D.  God's Mercy - In mercy God does not give us the punishment that we deserve because He has sent His Son to be punished in our place.  Christ willing laid down His life for His sheep, and as He hung there between heaven and earth, the Prince of Peace paid the penalty that our sins deserve.  He took all of our sin, all of our filth, and all of our guilt—all of the pigpen, if you will, upon Himself, and all of the wrath and judgment of God that was due us was poured out Christ.  

E.  God's Grace - And in God’s grace, we are now given what we do not deserve, namely, God’s favor based upon our union with Christ. We do not deserve eternal life, but God saves us by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  And when we embrace Christ by faith, resting in Him alone for our salvation, we are clothed in the royal garment of the perfect righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us, and a celebration is called for, as the angels Heaven rejoice!

III.  The Other Son (V. 25-29)

This other son provides an apt illustration of just how cold and calloused the human heart can be.  Instead of being overjoyed about the condition of his brother, we see: 

A.  The Pride and Jealousy of the Other Son – He related to his brother and his father on the basis of law.  He appeals to his righteous deeds and acts and judges his brother on the basis of those things. All that this other son had he had only by his father grace, yet now he thinks he can earn his fathers favor. 

B.  The Anger of the Other Son – The other son cannot understand the mercy and grace of his father toward his brother.  He is angry that his father would be so gracious and merciful to him, and he refuses to go inside and join in the celebration. 

This illustrates for us the dismay that people have over the plan of salvation that God has implemented.  People don’t necessarily have a problem with the idea that there is a God, what they have a problem with is the Christian idea of salvation—that salvation is based solely upon the sovereign grace God and the redemption that is found in Christ alone.  As 1 Cor 1:18 says, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. 

The actions and attitude of this other son remind us of:

C.  The Pharisees – It is clear that the other son here in the parable represents the Pharisees…remember, Jesus is addressing Pharisees who had gathered and were grumbling at how Jesus was actually interacting with “sinners.”

What is of particular note is that the other son is spoken of as still being in relationship to the father, and on a human level, there was still hope for the Pharisees as well.  However, we know that that hope would soon lost.  Here was God in the flesh, manifested in their presence, yet they despised what he was doing. They could not see through their own religious pride, and held God’s redemptive purposes in disdain, and eventually would conspire to have Him killed.   

Thus, not only can we all identify with the prodigal, because we were all in the pigsty (and sometimes we go back for a visit to the pigsty!), but  I think that far too frequently we can probably identify with this other son as well, whether it is in the jealously and anger toward someone who is being blessed instead of us, or in the fact that we may get puffed up in religious pride, and begin to judge our brothers and sisters on the basis of how good we think we are.  We size people up based on our own righteousness, and place people where we think they ought to be on our own self-righteous spiritual meter.  We must never forget, beloved, that the only righteousness we have is that which has been given to us.  We must never forget that our Heavenly Father has dealt with us according to His incredible grace, and that no matter how good with think we are, we still fall far short of God's glory.  Let us remember and take hold of these things as we live our daily lives, and interact with one another on the basis of love, compassion, mercy, and grace.

IV.  Conclusion

             The parable of the Lost Son is so dynamic that there are many lines of application that can be drawn from it.  And today, we have looked at how this parable really highlights the incredible mercy and grace of God in the salvation of sinners.

Dear one, if you are today, and have not come to the place in your life where you have cast yourself completely upon Christ by turning from your sins and embracing Him by faith alone, resting in Christ alone for your salvation, then you need to realize where you are.  You are in the pigpen, separated from God and what lies ahead is eternal condemnation.  Awake from your slumber.  Cry out to God that He would open your eyes, and come to the Father right now by giving your life to Christ.

            Maybe you’re here today, and you just do not have any sense of assurance.  You have come to the Father, you have received Christ, but you still feel like you’re in the pigsty because you don’t feel like you measure up.  Well, take heart, because none of us measures up in and of ourselves.  This is why Christ came, because only He measures up, and all of the measuring up that defines Christ has now been credited to your account.  God Himself has clothed you in the royal garments of the righteousness of Christ, and that is how He views you.  Our God, like the father in this story, takes delight in showering His love upon every one of His own.  There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

This is what Thanksgiving is all about, and what an awesome thing to be thankful for!  If you are in Christ, you are in Christ because of Christ.  He bought you, He sought you, He found you, He ran to you, He had compassion on you, He embraced you and lavished His love you, and nothing can ever separate you from the love of Christ.  Be thankful beloved, for you once were dead, but because of Christ you are alive and shall never die. You once were lost, but now in Christ you are found. 

Amen.