Sunday Sermon
sunday morning 9th Nov 2008
The experience of salvation: Luke 15.
We have looked so far at what the Good News is as announced by Jesus Christ.
The good news is Our God Reigns and you can enter into his government and have a fullness of life now.
Further we have seen how to enter into the Kingdom, that is through Repentance, e.g. thinking about this great offer and about your life and the level of commitment required to follow Jesus. Then after consideration following Him.
Next we will look at the actual experience of entering into this new life that Jesus offers by looking at Luke 15.
Note the context:
V1-3. Jesus is speaking to a specific audience. There were the outwardly good and acceptable members of the religious establishment and there were the sinners, the outcasts, those who would never get into the religious establishment.
And Jesus spoke specifically to those groups.
People who thought of themselves on the one hand as saved and people who thought of themselves as beyond the pale - lost.
Jesus’ approach to them is to tell them stories that will help them “repent” - that is think about the way they are thinking, and change the way they are thinking.
In the first story Jesus wants the Pharisees to compare their thoughts towards sinners and heavens thoughts towards sinners.
He wants them to think about the way they think! He wants them to repent.
Their attitude was to condemn and criticise sinners, whereas heaven welcomes sinners and rejoices over them - even as Jesus “received” sinners now.
The point is the same in the second story about the lost coin.
For the sinners who are listening Jesus also wants Repentance. He wants them to know that heaven does not have the same attitude towards them as the Pharisees do.
He wants them to recognise that heavens gates are wide open for them to enter in.
That point is made clear with the last story that Jesus tells. V11-32.
There is one main character in this story and two minor ones.
The main character is the father who represents God.
The minor characters are the brothers. Representing the sinners and the Pharisees.
The point is this: God wants to give you eternal life, regardless of your past history.
Many people call this story the parable of the Prodigal son.
Prodigal means “recklessly wasteful or extravagant”.
Now the son may have been prodigal with his fathers gifts but that is not the point!
The point is the prodigality of the father!
1) Lets look first of all then at this Prodigal Father.
The father simply divides his property / livelihood at the request of the son!
There was no need for this, he freely gave to the son who asked, seemingly without thought of the consequences.
The normal practice is that the estate is shared after the death of the father!
But the father is recklessly generous in his giving!
Does this picture not give us a flavour of the great gracious character of God? He is the one who has poured out gifts and talents freely upon the whole world!
But this is just a start, the real prodigal nature of the father is seen when it comes to his dealing with the son.
V20 gives us the shocking picture of a Jewish father running and falling all over his son with hugs and kisses of pent-up compassion.
V22-24 he does not even give the son time to make his full confession! Instead he gets him newly dressed and decorated with the appropriate signs of son-ship and then celebrates with a tremendous feast, all done with great joy, and not a hint of condemnation!
What is going on here? This reckless, full and free forgiveness! Surely Jesus is not saying that this is how God works!?
This compassion is not the compassion of God?! Gods heart does not go our to the repentant sinner in this way?!
Well that is just the point. That is the scandal of the Good News.
And that is what we must believe about God!
2) next we have the sinner: the prodigal son.
Now first of all we must note that there is no difference between this son and any other sinner. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That is it.
The son hates the father - wishes him dead, wants his estate!
Every sinner wants God dead. Would happily live life without Him. Wants the gifts but not the Giver.
The son takes the fathers generous estate and runs off wasting his fortune, then begins to be in need v14.
The experience of salvation often comes this way. When you begin to see your poverty outside of the life of Gods Kingdom, that is a great start.
But the son has further to go. He still is able to work, v15-16. However his work does not satisfy! He is still starving!
This is the point when we often turn to God for real. When we have tried other things and still are not satisfied. Spiritually we are starving because we do not have the life of God in our soul!
Then the son repents and goes home. V17. His repenting is that he begins to think clearly about his father and his own life and then sees that life at home is so much better!
And that is what salvation is all about. Repentance makes us see that life with God is far better than life without him!
The great good news is that God longs for us to see that!
3) finally we have the good boy.
He wonders what is going on and when he hears the sinner has returned home and that the red carpet has been rolled out for him he is angry!
He cannot accept the prodigals return nor the prodigality of the Fathers reception!
And for that reason he does not enter the party!! V28.
But the father begs him to come in, showing that he is loved too!
But the response, is graceless! V29-30. The older son has worked hard to earn salvation but has never had it. And he cannot stand the thought of salvation being given freely to this rebellious wasteful son. The real problem is he cannot accept the nature of the father and thus misses out on the great celebration / salvation himself.
What a warning that leaves us with this morning. That what may stop you from entering into salvation today is simply a disbelief in the outrageous compassion of God on repentant sinners like you and me.
sunday evening 9th Nov 2008
what next? Mat 28v18-20 Being a disciples and making disciples
Thus far we have seen what the good news is - God reigns and wants you to reign with him in his kingdom on earth now.
We have seen how to take hold of that great offer of salvation - that is through considering the offer and deciding then to follow Jesus or in one word “repentance”.
We have seen something of the experience of salvation: basically coming to see and accept for oneself the prodigal nature of Gods extravagant love.
Finally we need to ask what is next.
If I come to accept this great good news for myself what is next?
We need to address this question because very often salvation is seen in terms of Jesus simply dealing with my sins, so that I can get to heaven.
The effect of this is to give us then no motivation to live for him now.
One of the consequences of this is that people get disillusioned with the faith and then backslide or give up all together.
The reason for that is because life is now! The human soul needs satisfaction now, needs life with God now. The promise of a free pass into heaven is in the end not enough to drive us on in our following of Jesus now.
And it was never meant to be, that is why Jesus left the Great Commission.
So what is next for the disciple? For the answer we turn to Mat28v18-20.
1) The first thing is we must keep in view at all times the Glory of Jesus v18.
It is the vision of Him that will enable us to move on into eternal life now, life to the full now, after we have decided to follow him.
Without this vision we will not get very far at all. We will in fact give up following.
Or we will fall into dead legalism, where we follow religious rules and traditions just for the sake of it! No life, no joy, no happiness.
Without a vision of the glory of Christ spurring us on we might as well not bother.
What are we to see of Jesus from this text?
See that He has all authority over everything. Which means that he has power over everything. He basically said to the disciples “I am in charge now over everything”!
And that is the vision we must hold as we go about our business every day - the Lord is in charge here! He is the one I am answerable to, and he is the one who empowers me to do his work on earth!
Why are you still left on earth after repenting and believing the Good News?
Because Jesus is now in charge and he has given you work to do! You are working for him now!
2) then we must follow him as he leads us into the business of making disciples. V19.
As we keep our glorious Saviour in focus we will naturally “go” - we will naturally follow him. This is what Jesus intends for us as we follow him.
The command here is not to “go”, the going is simply expected as we behold Christ.
The command is to make disciples.
Note: not converts! Not even Christians - but disciples.
Our task as disciples is to make disciples! A better word is apprentice.
This leads to two fundamental questions:
A. What is an apprentice of Jesus Christ?
B. How do we make apprentices of Jesus Christ?
An apprentice is a person who works with a teacher learning to do whatever the teacher is teaching - plumbing, carpentry etc.
A disciple apprentice is someone who lives with Jesus learning to do the things he teaches.
How do we make disciples?
We baptise and we teach.
“Baptise them in the name….”
To make a disciple we must introduce them into the Trinitarian community of God.
Baptising is not simply sprinkling with water whilst saying the name of God over the child/adult!
Rather baptising is enabling the disciple to come to terms with the fundamental nature of this world - which is that God is here! Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Every morning when we get up the first thing we have to do is come to terms with the reality of Gods presence all around us.
The question that the disciple asks each day is, “what is fundamentally true and real about life today”?
And the answer is - God is here.
This of course links in to all that the Apprentice has already come to accept i.e. that God reigns, his kingdom is open and we are invited to take part in what he is doing on earth right now.
We can only take part in Gods kingdom when we are immersed into the Name.
For it is only because God is here that we have the supernatural power and ability that we need to live that life in his kingdom.
From that foundation in the Trinitarian life of God the disciple then learns to do all the Jesus taught v20.
As we become aware of His presence, His leading and guiding we learn to live the kind of life He lived while He was on earth. A life full of compassion, humility, power and meaning!
3) finally we have the magnificent promise that accompanies the Apprentice to Jesus Christ as she / he seeks to follow him - “I am with you always” v20.
The final part sums up what the disciples life is like next!
With all that we have already seen in place we have this great assurance given.
“I am with you” - how can we live life with meaning? Accomplishing all that kingdom life requires?
Well the first answer is we cannot! It is impossible on our own.
But the great grace of God is that He comes and is with us!
You may be scared of what will happen, may be aware of all your faults, may worry about the challenges ahead.
We that’s fine, perhaps you should be like that - Moses was!
But God says - I am with you. The great I am, the one who is, Yahweh.
You can be a disciple of Christ and make disciples of other because of that one great fact - God is with you.
And where else will you run to anyway?
Life without God is just as frightening and hard.
The bottom line is this: now is your chance to follow Jesus, now is your chance for a significant life of meaning and purpose. This is the golden moment.
Lift up your eyes and follow Him.
