Bullish On Love II, Affirmation

Luke 15, if you don't have a Bible, the person next to you will share, and if not, we do have an overhead with the text on it for today, which I'm going to follow quite closely and pray for Karen as I go back and forth, it's a little confusing, but she does such a great job, we'll make it. This is a familiar text, but one that I think bears some revisiting today because of the insights that it has on our topic for today. Luke chapter 15, I'm just looking for where I put my copy of that so I don't have to read off the overhead if I can't find it. By the way, if you've not picked up your tea time for the golf outing, it's sold out now after one announcement last week, so you need to go back in the gym afterwards and find out when you're heading out on the links next week. Alright, well, for whatever reason, I'll just read it out of the Bible, let's do it, Luke 15, all else fails, turn in the Bible, I guess, huh? It's right out of the NIV this morning, and let's go ahead and flash it up there. Okay, now the story is, as you know, the prodigal son takes his inheritance, leaves his father, and wanders off and squanders it all on loose living, and he finds himself destitute, impoverished, eating in the pigsties of life, and he's wiped out, and here's what it says, verse 17. When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired men 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 men. And 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. And he ran to his son and 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 a sandal 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. And so they began to celebrate. You know, several of you have asked me, Why the title of this series, Bullish Unloved? Where did that come from? And clearly it's a reference to the stock market. The stock market that for the last 18 months or so has been on this bull run. Bullish, of course, standing for positive, strong, growing markets. A market that continues to astonish the experts, even though it's plateaued a bit in the last couple of weeks. But during my summer study break, I was renewed in my conviction, friends, that if there is one power in the world today that can change the human heart, if there is any hope in the world today, it's for the power of love. And though that word might be bandied about pretty loosely in lots of circles, I want to talk about it in a very specific, sacrificial way today. I believe that if we learn to receive love and then invest it in others, we can see lives change. Thus, I'm bullish on love. I'm believing that it's going to continue strong here in our midst as a people. Love will make you do some pretty foolish things, won't it? How many of you have done something pretty stupid in the name of love recently? I mean something you wouldn't have done ordinarily. There's some hands going like this because they don't want the spouse to see what they're thinking. But if you walk in the door of my home, you'll see creatures running in different directions. That's love for me. There's no affinity there whatsoever. But it's just something I do because I love my wife and she loves cats. But love is really the only explanation for this irrational action of the Father that we see here today. This renegade son, dear ones, didn't deserve what he got. Today's theme is about affirmation. Last week was about acceptance. I want to give you five characteristics. This is the first blank in your outline. Five characteristics of the Father's affirmation and then how we can do these same things. Now how many of you are in a position where you influence another person during your week? How many of you have an influencing position? Are you a wife, a mother, a husband, a father, a worker, a teacher? What do you do? Every one of us who intersects with you can influence people. One of these, at least this week, will make a difference in someone's life. So let's look at these five very clear gifts that the Father gave the Son. Number one, he gave him an embrace. Remember that the prodigal had left on his own volition. And by the way, the word prodigal in Greek, I did a little study on this, doesn't just mean wanderer, it means waster. The prodigal was wasting his life. And you know when I read that, something just jumped in my spirit because sometimes I thought prodigal, well you think of, you know, evil or you think rebellious or you think someone that's into a lot of real garbage and that may be true, but the word also means someone whose life is wasting away. How many of you know someone whose life is just kind of passing, wasting away, not having any impact, not making a difference, not changing anything? That's what a prodigal is. And when I read that, I said, you know, Lord, I bet there's going to be some prodigals here on Sunday morning. And I know that every one of you are going to encounter some prodigals tomorrow as you go back into the marketplace. But notice that the Father doesn't require him to come back. In fact, the Son used his own free will. And I want to say one thing here today. God will never make you do something against your will, friend. Those of us who wonder, why doesn't God just make everyone become a believer and that way then everyone would go to heaven? Because that would be a violation of the principle of free will. A little later in this service, I'm going to give you an opportunity to exercise your will to receive Jesus Christ into your life. God will never force you to do that. You don't have to do that. You can continue to live your life. You can continue to be a prodigal. But make no mistake, there will be consequences for those decisions. In the end, you will reap what you sow. But the Bible says the prodigal came to his senses, verse 17, and he headed home rehearsing the lines that he was going to say to his father. Let's flash that up again. Look what he says, verse 18 and 19. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, quote, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. Say that with me. Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men. And I envision in my mind, I don't know how long the journey was, but he's saying, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men. Father, I have sinned against heaven. And he's just repeating this. Why is he repeating this as he walks along? Because he knows when he looks into his father's eyes, he knows that his father is going to be really angry with him. And he just wants, he doesn't want to melt down. He wants to have this well rehearsed. And so he heads home. And then the Bible says this incredible story develops. Because while he's still a long way off, which indicates to me that the father was looking for him, the father sees him. And then, friends, listen, look, he runs toward him. Now, if you're the son, what are you thinking right then? Oh, man, he's coming after me. Right? I mean, he is really ticked. Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. And he starts rehearsing and speeds up. And then when they read the King James Bible, it says, and then he fell on his neck. Anyone have your King James Bible there? Right? You know what it says? He fell on his neck. The first time I read that, I thought, well, maybe he just came and gave up. Karate chop. But the accurate translation, what that really means, is what the NIV says, if we can put that back up. His father ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him. Friends, I've got to believe that the son was staggered. It was the exact opposite reaction that he prepared for. He had no idea what was going on. This gift of the embrace of the father was huge to him. And I believe something really dramatic happened right there, because I believe, if we read this accurately, he started his little spiel, didn't he? Verse 21, the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. Are you looking at it? I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. And then all of a sudden, the whole scene changes. Now, some Bibles say, well, like the message translation says, the father wasn't listening. He turned to his servants and said, I have another theory. I believe that maybe there's a missing verse right there, or maybe a missing word. Because right there, at the end of that verse, let's move it up just a little bit, up the other way, above the blank. I believe the son right there starts the second part of his spiel, make me like one of your servants. And then all of a sudden there's a missing word. If we could get that overhead that has the missing word on it, it looks like this. It's a missing word that you probably won't see in your Bible, even in your Bible dictionary. And it's on the outline. Just find the outline page. It's right under point one. And there's the missing word. Okay? What word is that? Well, that's the word that comes out when he starts to say, I'm no longer the father. The father puts his hand over the son's mouth and says, He doesn't want the son to speak any more of this self-condemnation. You see, he doesn't want the son to be saying, hey, I'm not worthy to be one of your sons anymore. Slide it up just a little bit. See, it says there, self-condemnation is what stalks us all. How many of you ever thought, I'm not worthy to come to God? Anybody? I mean, Jay, if you knew my life, I'm not really worthy. Isn't the blank above that about self-condemnation? There you go. This put an end to his self-condemnation. And friends, listen to me. How many of you, like me from time to time, have struggled with what's called a besetting sin? How many know what a besetting sin is? A besetting sin is something you just repeatedly fall into. Something you find yourself doing that you know God doesn't like and you don't even like. And you wish it was out of your life, but somehow you fall back into it. And then you say, oh God, I'm sorry for this. I mean, it could be a thought pattern. It could be a habit. It might be something you look at. It might be something that you eat or drink or ingest. And you say, God, please forgive me. And miracle of miracles, you sense that he does. And you get up and you go for a couple of days and lo and behold, you do it again. And you say, oh God, I am so sorry. And you really are sorry. But you get up and a few days later, that temptation comes along and that sin besets you again. How many know what I'm talking about? And then you say, oh God, please forgive me again. But in your mind you start to think, God can't possibly forgive me. I mean, he must be looking at me right now thinking, you fool, get real. I mean, if you're serious, you've got to change. And so you say, well, you know God, I'm not even going to ask you to forgive me. But I'm going to show you how serious I am and how sincere I am and I'm not going to do it. And so you get up and you walk away from that thing. And you go a whole week and you don't do it. And then you go to God and say, see, I am really serious now, would you forgive me? And what I want you to hear today is this. You're trying to prove to God how sincere you are about getting rid of the sin of your life doesn't help the situation at all. In fact, what you need to do is to see that God the Father comes and he puts his hand over your mouth when you say, I'm really sincere. Because the only basis for forgiveness time after time after time is the blood of Jesus Christ. And when you come to the cross and say, Lord, I am not worthy to be forgiven. Would you nonetheless forgive me and reinstate me and empower me to break free from my besetting sin based on what you've done? Then the Father says, I will. So let's get that real clear because that's very important this morning. That the basis of breaking free from self-condemnation is not your intentional good efforts, friends. It's the power of God. And so when you're tempted just to condemn yourself and saying, you know, I just, I know I can do it. I'm going to change on my own. Just see the Father saying, because you're not going to do it. Turn to someone and say, very important principle. And by the way, the application of that is this. When you find someone in your little circle that fails you, it's okay to correct them in love. But give them the freedom to fail and encourage them that as a person you love them just as they are. It's a very important part of growing in affirmation of others. Second thing that the Lord does is, the Father does rather, is he bestows upon the son the robe. And let me just touch this real briefly and I'm going to move quickly here. The robe you see was something, we're not familiar with that. We don't wear robes in our culture. Back then the servants wore robes that went down to about a little over the knees. But the family members, they wore robes that went all the way down to the ankles. That was a sign of status. And when the Father says, bring up the best robe, it was not just quality here. Obviously it was that. But it was also indicating a full length robe. The Father was saying, listen, you don't have to be a servant and work for me. In fact, I'm going to put a robe on you that shows all of my servants that you're not one of them. You're one of mine. And if you want to do any work in my family, son, you're going to do it because you love me. You're going to do it because you want to serve this family. Loved ones, the only motivation for serving God, for being part of the serving core of his body, is not to gain improvement in the heavenly status of things. It's not so that you can say one day, oh Lord, receive me into heaven because I serve in kids ministry. Or I went on a mission trip. Or I visited the sick. Or I led a small group. Rather it's because out of the gratefulness of your heart, you know that God has given you salvation. And the only response that's really appropriate is that of loving obedience to what the Lord asks you to do. How many of you are doing something like that right now? How many of you are serving or giving something beyond yourself because you love the Lord and you just want to do it? Can I just suggest, if you're not serving or giving, I just have to ask the question, are you really loving? Because if you love someone, you serve. I mean if you love your spouse, don't you serve them and give to them? If you love a friend, you're delighted to serve them, to give to them. The other thing that the robe does is entirely different. You see, in the days of wandering out in the world, the son found himself, the Bible says, beaten up pretty badly and ending up in pigsty. And I have a sense that on his leg were some pretty ugly scratches and some scars. We know that he didn't have any shoes. And to walk miles without shoes in those days meant your feet were kind of messed up as well. And what that robe did, friends, was it went down and covered the scars that he had absorbed while he lived the world's way. And there's not just a few of us here today that need to understand that when you come to Christ, he gives you a robe of righteousness that covers even the scars of your old life. Some of you need to hear me right now. Because you're living under some guilt of the past and some shame of your old ways of life. And Jesus says, wait, I want to put a robe that covers even the shame of your past failures, even the ugliness of your past sin, the marks that it left on you. I want to take those away. You know, you may notice as you look around here that not all of us are beautiful people. Some of us have had some pretty rough lives. We're not all poster people here. Some of us have some scars and some marks. Years ago, a rather attractive woman came up to me after a Wednesday night service. And she, you know, was tastefully dressed. She had a long sleeve blouse on with like a French cuff kind of look. And she said to me, you know, I've been coming about a year now and I recognized her. And I said, well, what's bothering you? And she said, well, I just have to tell you something about me that I've been holding in for a year. And I said, well, what's that? And she took her sleeves and she unbuttoned them. And rolled them up. And showed me two huge scars on her wrists. And she started to sob and she said, I just was afraid that if you knew what my life was really like before I came here, that somehow I wouldn't fit into this place. I wouldn't be accepted. And I looked right at her and I put my arms out to her and held her hands and I said, I just want you to know that all of us in this place have scars of some kind. But we've put on a robe of righteousness that Jesus has given to us. And now we stand with those scars covered by his righteousness and love. And I embraced her and I said, there are no second class citizens here. We welcome you just as you are. And she's become a very significant part of our church life. Friends, we can affirm others when we cover their sin. Listen, some of you are going to see someone fail this week and you're going to be tempted to tell everybody. Well, look at that. Look at that. One of the greatest ways you can affirm a person is by covering their sin and their scars. Number three, the Lord gives the son a ring. Now this ring is a visible symbol that the son was returning to full partnership in the family business. He was to share in the authority of the family name. He was to have free reign and privilege using the authority of the family name. What's the counterpart of that today? What today can you give your child that would show that he has the full authority of your name? Yeah, your credit card, right? Just flip that bugger down there and they just sign your name and away they go. It's kind of scary when you think about it, but it is true. Now keep in mind that this son had already squandered his full share of the inheritance. And by the way, that's my own theory as to why the other brother was really kicked off. Because he, you know, he'd been real concerned about keeping his end of things. And now the son's coming back and getting more. But listen, when it comes to God, there is no limit to his resource. And if someone, you know, fails and God seems to open up and they come back again, and God replenishes their life, you're not diminished because of that. There's no limit to what God can give you, even if someone else prospers. And that's why, listen, we can rejoice with others who are blessed. If someone near you gets a promotion, don't just say, No, I'm not. Come on, God, that was supposed to be for me. If another church around us gets blessed, I'm not saying, well, there goes all our people. I only believe God has a lot more people that he wants to fill every church with. Absolutely. Because his resource is unlimited. He wants us to share in that. And we can affirm others, dear ones, by empowering them to be a partner in the work of God. You know, if we just get this one principle today, I'd be so thrilled. You see, the whole thing that just trips up the church in this generation is, we're looking to some individuals to kind of be the key people that are going to make it all happen. In Acts 3, 6, Peter and John are on their way to the temple to pray, and a crippled man looks at them and says, Give me some money, he said. Do you have any alms for the poor? And they said, Silver and gold have I. How many of you can say that? I don't have much money either. But that which I have, give I thee. What I do have, I'm going to give you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And boom, the crippled man walked from that day on. Friends, for too long, we've looked to powerful people in certain ministries to kind of do the work of God for us. And you know the names of the people I'm thinking about. Some of you watch them on TV every week, and you say, Well, if only so-and-so would come to Pittsburgh or to North Way, or if I could just get to that meeting or that person. And I'm not minimizing that God gives certain gifts, and that's wonderful. But let's get our eyes off the superstars, and let's get our eyes on the body of Christ. Let's get our eyes on what every one of us has been given. We all have a ring on our finger, given to us by God, that says, You have authority. Take a look at the ring God's given you. Do you see it? Well, I don't see any ring. Well, it's symbolic. It's an authority that God's given to you. And my heart would be that everyone in this church would say, Wait a minute, I've been given authority. I can pray for someone and see him healed. I can pray for someone and see him provided for. I can be part of ministering to somebody and having them restore their relationships, or whatever it might be. Sometimes people stop me after the service, and they'll say, Well, Pastor Jerry, if you would just pray for me, I think something would happen. And I'm not the kind of person to say, Get away from me. I'm not going to, I'll pray for him. But I often want to say to them at the same time, Wait, were you just in the service there? And they say, Well, yeah. Well, when we turned and prayed together, or when we joined hands, did you pray for God to take care of that problem? Well, yeah. Well, listen, God listens to your prayer every bit as much as he listens to mine. So why don't you just thank him that he's already heard it and begin to believe that he heard you and let it start to happen in your life. And you say, Well, I'm not sure I believe all that. Well, I want to urge you. Thursday, write it down, Thursday the 25th, you come to that night of a concert of prayer and you're going to experience a release of how to pray effectively in a small group for one another. And you'll just, it'll change your life. That's Thursday the 25th. This whole thing of looking to certain people really baffles me. You know this Mother Teresa funeral and all? And all these people giving due honor to such a wonderful woman who gave her life so selflessly, her whole life to the poorest of the poor. But the one thing that intrigues me right now is this. There's this clamoring for her sainthood. And that's fine. I have a different theology of sainthood, but I'm not going to get in the way of that. That's fine. But you know what I sense is? Mother Teresa, when she was asked about all she did, she said, It's no big deal. I just come out of my shelter and I go out in the streets and I find people laying there dying and I pick them up and bring them into my hospital and I just take care of their wounds and feed them meals. And I'm wondering, what might happen in our world today, friends, if all the people that are clamoring for Mother Teresa to become a saint would just simply walk out on the street and find someone to care for? Or they'd go into a senior care home and just talk to a lonely senior citizen or visit some orphaned kids or go back and hold a baby in their arms. I mean, what might happen if we didn't worry about making saints and worried more about being a saint to someone else? It would change our world. And I say, Lord, let it happen here. Next thing he gave him was shoes. Shoes have to do with moving and the purposes of God in your life. If you don't have shoes on, friends, you don't go very far. And this renegade son was shoeless when he returned. He was greatly limited. It was a sign of poverty. And here the Lord is saying, Listen, I affirm in you that I have a purpose that you're going to walk in. Shoes mean that I am equipped in the purposes of God. Ephesians 6.15 says that we have been given the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace. Our shoes have been, our feet have been shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. What does that mean? That means that every place you walk, you bring the kingdom of God, the rule of God into that place. Now, how many of you are going to go into a place tomorrow to work that isn't real godly? Any staff people have their hands up? No, okay. Just checking. Now, how many of you go, you work in a pretty non-Christian environment? Let me see your hands. You go to a non-Christian school, whatever it might be. What you need to hear God saying is, I'm putting on your feet today the preparation of the gospel of peace. I'm going to put on you the power to be a reconciler in that situation. I'm uniquely empowering you with the mission to be my representative in that place. I've said it this way many times, everywhere you're going to go is someplace Jesus wants to be. And that's true. You've got the preparation of the gospel of peace on your feet. And when you walk across that threshold or that office or that school tomorrow, just say, you know what, I'm here as God's representative. Lord, use me. Don't make it up, just say, use me. And let him lead you in that. Because as you do, whether it's being a consultant or a pipe fitter or a teacher or a physician or a portfolio manager or a mechanic, it doesn't matter. You serve God wherever you go. My next series is going to be about how that works out, by the way, in the marketplace. Finally, the Father says, let's throw a feast for my son. I mean, let's do it upright. Let's make it big. And I love this because, you know what, the son thought, hey, I'm going into solitary confinement. The Father said, no, we're giving you a celebration. What a contrast. What a surprise. Sunday school teacher asked her class, well, who was the unhappiest one when the prodigal came home from his wanderings? Expecting one of the children to say, well, the older brother, she pointed to a little redheaded guy who said, well, it was the fatty calf. Yeah. He was the unhappiest one, I guess, right? Not a lot of joy in calf land that day. We affirm God's purposes in one another. We affirm the value of one another every single time we share our joy with them. Friends, I just want to close with this. There's a world out there that really needs to know what I'm saying today and what you're hearing today. There are people out there who are desperately looking for hope. At the end of an elders meeting yesterday, I received a phone call from somebody in jail. That he was in jail was no surprise. I've known this man for 12 years. For 10 of those years, maybe 9 or 10, he's been in jail. He was calling me from jail and there was a tone in his voice that was different this time. I hadn't heard from him in quite a while. He's written me now and then, but I hadn't heard his voice for at least a year. He said, Pastor Jay, he said, I am really hurting. This man hasn't done anything what we would call major crime. He hadn't committed murder or anything like that, but a series of events and a couple of things where he was drunken and made some really stupid decisions and they linked up. Over time, the system says, hey, if you're going to keep doing it, we're going to throw you in there for a long time. He told me, I'm going to get six more years for another small violation. Six years. The man's in his late 30s now and I'm thinking, his life is passing by. What I heard him say is this. He said, you're my only hope. I know I'm probably as susceptible as anyone to being conned by somebody who maybe wants to get some money from you, but I heard this strange thing in my head which I didn't expect. I heard God say to me, if I were in prison, would you do something for me? I told this man, I said, Freddy, what can I do? He said, well, you know, I don't, that's not his name, I'm just using a different name. He said, I just did this really small thing and I don't deserve what they're going to give me. I don't deserve six years for this little violation. I said, wait right there. I said, you know what? You probably deserve everything you're getting, but I want to say to you that God has a plan where you don't get what you deserve, you get what you don't deserve. You get grace. And I want to do what I can to be an agent of God's grace and I'm going to make a phone call and I'm going to see if I can't do something to turn around the situation, to have another hearing that maybe your sentence could be changed. You know what, friends? You know someone who may not be in physical prison, but they're in a prison of another kind and they're saying, I don't deserve this. God wants you to be an agent that says, I can make a difference. Embrace them. Give them the robe. Put on a ring. Put shoes on their feet. Throw a feast for them. Be God's love to them. That's our mission. Let's stand and pray. I'm going to ask you to bow your heads please and if you wouldn't mind bringing up your hands and maybe just joining hands with the person next to you as we come to communion in just a moment. Before we do that, I want to ask this question today as we join hands throughout the auditorium. Who's here this morning that would say, you know what, Jay, I've heard myself described in what you were talking about today. I've been kind of wasting my life. I've been wandering from God and I want there to be a change in my life. I want to come to God, the Father. And friend, if you want that today, the Bible says you need to ask Jesus Christ to be your substitutionary sacrifice for your sin. In other words, let Jesus take the penalty you deserve and you do that by asking Him to come into your life to be your Savior, to be your Lord. Pray this prayer. Invite the Lord in and He'll take you to the Father. Pray this prayer right where you are. Heavenly Father, say the words. Heavenly Father, I need to know you. Please forgive my sin today. I come to the cross. I receive you now. Give me a brand new heart and take me home to be with you. In your name I pray. Amen. Now if you prayed that prayer, God's heard your prayer and He's beginning that process of giving you a brand new heart. And I want you to do this. If you prayed that prayer, it's important to let someone else know. Just squeeze the hand of the person next to you. If you just prayed that prayer with me or if that was the desire of your heart, just squeeze the hand of the person next to you. That's it. And that I might have the privilege of agreeing with you today that you prayed that prayer. I won't embarrass anyone. But if you prayed that prayer and you squeezed someone's hand, just the two of you right now, put your hand up in the air and just look this way and I'll agree with you throughout. Thank you, sir. I agree. God bless you. I see you. And here? Yes, ma'am. I see your hand. Hold it up high. Yes. Several of you here and right in this row and over here. Yes, sir. I see you. God bless you. Back here in the dress. Yes, ma'am. God bless you. Standing by yourself. By the others. Right here. Yes, sir. In the yellow shirt. I agree with you. God bless you. Sir, I agree with you in this portrait right here. Yes, I see you. Yes. In the red dress and next to you. Yes, I agree with you. God bless you. And in the back. Yes. Kind of standing near the row there. Yes, sir. I see you. Person next to you. God bless you. Yes, right over here, sir. Thank you very much. And here in the front in the blue. Yes, sir. I agree with you in the blue shirt. God bless you. And right behind you. The two of you there. I agree with you. Yes. Yes. And one more way up here. Yes. Okay. God bless you. I agree with you. Now, whether you lifted it up because you prayed or the person next to you, it doesn't matter. God knows and I'm agreeing with the numbers of you throughout the auditorium. Now, you can put your hand down if I saw you. If I missed you, I'll come back and look once more. Anyone else? All right. Praise God. Oh, Father, thank you for your presence now. And we ask your Holy Spirit to seal these many decisions. Thank you for coming, running to us now and embracing each of these new ones in your kingdom. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.