From Failure to Fullness, Peter

We began last week with a series of messages under the title From Failure to Freedom. From Failure to actually, From Failure to Fullness is what I entitled this series of messages dealing with men and women who encountered Jesus Christ in their failure and found him moving them into a fullness of life. We talked about Peter last week. We talked about the fact that he had been drawn by the ring of truth in the message of Jesus, that he had obeyed the call of the Lord and had followed along, but really stayed near the shoreline of experience and of pressing on in the Lord. And how it became a confrontation point between Jesus and Peter. Would he stay by the shore or would he put out into the deep for a catch? And how when Peter saw the power of God at work in and through him, he had to say, lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man. And we said that the revelation of the person of Jesus always will reveal the depravity of his own nature. Man in the face of God realizes how lost he is. But the grace of God, you see in Jesus was to say to Peter, fear not, from now on you'll be catching men. And hallelujah. He called Peter forth and moved him from that failure to a fullness of position as apostle to the early church. This week we're going to be looking at a group of men and women, not a particular person necessarily. We're going to be examining some who, and hearing the call of God, recognized their own failure and lostness. I want to set the scene for you here. It's in Luke 14, beginning in verse 25, we're going to read probably the most difficult words of Jesus alongside of possibly John chapter six that we read a few weeks ago, where Jesus said, talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Read along with me if you have an rsv, and read out loud so those who don't have an RSV can see how good it is. Here we go now. Great multitudes accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost? Whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, is not able to finish? All who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going to encounter another king in war will not sit down and first take counsel whether he is able with 10,000, to meet him who comes against him with 20,000. And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill men. Throw it away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. How many of you would agree with me that those are hard words? And any earnest believer in Jesus who sought to wrestle with the call of God in their life has found this to be a passage of considerable wrestling. And here we have gathered a group of followers of Jesus to whom he turns and says these very things. And we here at Northway Christian Community are aware of the fact that the Lord is calling us. The Lord is calling us to a difficult path. It's not something that we're manufacturing. It's something that he has put into His Word. And we hate these words because, you see, they go right straight against the grain of the American dream. They motherhood, patriotism, apple pie, Chevrolet, Right? We don't say, renounce all that he has and follow him. We say, accumulate all that you can and get power and authority and wealth. Jesus just wipes out, it seems, in this passage, everything that we have come to hold dear as Americans. And the intertwining of Americanism with Christianity has left some sort of an unclear wedding of these two thoughts. So the Christians are in the midst of balancing these two things as they go along. You know what I'm saying? Do you agree? Okay. Amen. We are. And I have found myself, even as one who desires to follow this call of the Lord, wrestling with what this means. Just in the last few weeks, I found it to be a burden in my heart. And I believe that anyone who really wants to be devoted to the Lord and seeking to walk after him, and I know many of you are, that no matter how well intended we are, no matter how disciplined we are, we somehow fall short of what this seems to put forth, doesn't it? Of carrying our own cross daily and following Him. Beloved, there can come upon us a heaviness that can press us right down underneath the concrete and a condemnation that seems to just wring out of us the very essence of the life of Jesus. And yet, as true as that is, it does not exonerate us from heeding this call, it does not say that we're just to forget about these verses and just limp along and keep these in the back of our minds, which, if we're honest, most of us do, we don't really wrestle with. Counting the cost of Luke 14. And I found in myself this week that there are two basic responses to this call of discipleship. Listen, American Christianity. And really, Christianity around the world, for the most part, has so fogged over what it means to be a disciple that we have made for ourselves our own definition of what a Christian is. And churchianity has become the definition of what it means to be a Christian. I belong to a church. That's why 53% of Americans can say that they're Christians or whatever. It is more than that, because our definition of Christians in America is one who belongs to a church. But Jesus said, I didn't come to make Christians. I came to make disciples, followers of Jesus. Now, when you read these words, there are two basic responses that can come to your heart. One is as the Pharisees and the scribes, to stand back and measure the word of the Lord and say, well, I'm not so sure that's what he meant. That's your interpretation. I mean, I've done pretty well for 45 years kind of looking at it this way. And now you're saying, Jesus said it's your way. And really there's something about that posture of measuring what of Jesus, words you're going to accept and what you're going to put out that I think just eliminates the possibility of God working in your life, as we'll see in a minute. But there's a second posture that I think is far more the case than most of us. When we hear these kind of words, we, like these dear sinners that we're going to read about here, feel totally lost. We feel lost, unable to live up to. Look with me. In verse one of chapter 15, here's the same passage. I'd never seen this before. Here's the same setting, the same group of people. This isn't three weeks later. Now, the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him. You see, beloved, many times a severe word will make you draw near to the Lord. It will. And the tax collectors and sinners heard that severe word and realized the ring of truth in it and began to draw near to him. But the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with him. You see, they measured and weighed and evaluated what they were going to accept and what they were going to throw out. But the sinners and those who were lost drew near to him. And then in the context of those who are coming to hear the word, Jesus utters three of the most precious parables in all the New Testament scripture. And I don't know about you, but I had never seen in my studies of the Word the link between these parables of grace and the call to discipleship of Luke 14. So that I've always thought of the Prodigal Son as referring to that old sinner out there. And now I see that just as well it speak to this old sinner right here. I want us to look at these three parables of grace to see what Jesus says to those of us who. Who hear the call to count the cost and follow Jesus with all of our hearts and yet sense that I can't do that. I'm lost. That's our definition. I'm lost. I'm unable to really heed this call to follow Jesus as he wants to be followed. Let's look at these three parables together. I feel the need to sort of read through it so that I'm not just dropping bits and pieces in your ears. Just listen as I read, beginning in verse three. So he told them this parable. What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, rejoicing. Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Here is the predicament of the lost sheep. How many of you know that when the Lord talks about his people as sheep, it's not really a compliment. You may think that sheep are wooly and cuttable, cuddly and lovable, but God basically thinks they're dumb and thick guilty. And we really are, aren't we? We are pretty dumb creatures. And the characteristic of a sheep is to put his or her head down and just kind of mind your own business and munch on along and wander right off over the cliff. That's what characterizes him, isn't it? And there's a bit of independence in a sheep's doing that. But primarily it's just ignorance. And what we're seeing here is really, in referring to us as a lost sheep, I believe the Lord is saying that we have this tendency to be in a predicament of being lost through our own stupidity, ignorance. And we don't want to hear that. But it's true. There's an ignorance about us. I think some are lost. Some of the sheep today in the church of Jesus are lost because they have never really sought to know the truth. And so their ignorance is kind of their own fashioning. And they've just sat down and beloved, I sat with people who've gone to church their whole lives and don't really know what the Bible says. And it doesn't excuse them one minute before God. They're ignorant. There are some sheep who are ignorant, really, because they have not listened to the voice of the good shepherd they've chosen. They've preferred to move around and listen to the voice of shepherds all over the countryside. And in their own sweet way, really, what they're doing is grazing right over the cliff. That's right. Because, you see, the Lord says that my sheep hear my voice. And the Lord will bring a shepherd into your life through which he will minister. And beyond that, he'll bring a shepherd, his own shepherd's voice to your ear. I'm not calling here for some kind of discipleship call. I'm just saying that the Lord speaks through men and women that he raises up. And people who just want to pick and choose who they're hearing from are going to pick and choose their way right out of the confines of the security of the flock. And so the predicament of these sheep is being lost through ignorance. Now look at the precious picture of what God says here. He says that the shepherd goes out and searches for the sheep, and when he finds him, he puts the sheep on his shoulder. And here is, if you can see it, a picture of the Son of God suffering for his lost lambs. And it's a precious truth, isn't it, that not only does God say, come back to me, but he sends out his Son. And the Son picks the sheep up and puts him on his shoulders. And there's some of you this morning who the Lord would say, turn to me and I'll carry you on my shoulders. You're lost. You don't know how to heed this call, but I'll put you on my shoulders, I'll carry you back to the flock. I'll carry you on the road of holy living. And he suffers that you can do that. He bears the weight. He bore it. And he offers that very sacrifice to you. And I rejoice that this scripture is plain, that the cost for your ongoing walk in Jesus has been paid by the suffering son. Jesus said in John 14, I am the good shepherd. It's a clear picture of the fact that Jesus will carry you back into the fold. Jesus wants to take our failures. He wants to take the fact that we haven't been able to heed this call. Not just the fact that once, way back when we were sinners, but today. And he says, turn to me and I'll carry your weight at my shoulders. I'll bring you home. I had a conversation a few weeks back with a man who was saying, in essence, I really like to come out to church out there with you all because it's different, but I don't think I'm ready for what you're talking about. I remember he said that you may have heard something like that. I'm not ready for that yet. What he was really saying was, I prefer to chew the grass here in this part of the field because, well, I just don't know what that's about. Over where you are. And it's that very kind of mindset, beloved, that the Lord is saying, I'll put you on my shoulders and carry you back. But there's one thing, one condition. Do you see what it is? It's kind of added on to the end, just so. I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sin. Sinner who repents. All the Lord says is repent of your preference for stupidity. Repent of it, turn from it, and I'll place you on my shoulders and carry you back. Now, there's a second picture here. Both of these parables run together. Actually, it's a picture of a woman. Let's read it. Verse 8. Or what? Woman having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost. Just so. I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Now, some see this coin as part of a frontlet that woman wore over her forehead as a sign of betrothal. One of those coins was lost. And whereas the sheep was in its predicament because of its own stupidity, the coin, as it were an inanimate object is in its predicament because of some form of carelessness. It didn't really have that much to do with its own situation. And if we can take the parable that closely, it really says to me that there are people in the body of Christ today who find themselves in a predicament of being lost because they haven't been cared for. Every Sunday, people come to church looking for something, looking for someone to help care for them, and they don't find it, and consequently they turn away. And there are some of you here today who have turned to the church at your time of need and found that you weren't cared for. And there's been a seed of bitterness planted in your heart toward a church or a pastor or a group of people. And because there hasn't been care, you find yourself lost, unable to heed this call of Jesus to discipleship. And yet in the picture here, we see God, the Spirit, as it were. I don't want to stretch this too far, but I can see that the woman might represent the Holy Spirit. The Bible says in Genesis 1:2 that the Spirit was brooding over the waters. And that brooding is a picture, isn't it, of the motherly Spirit of God. And the woman is searching for that lost coin. Diligently seeking is what the Greek word means. And we see clearly that when that coin is lost, God is out there searching for you. He's out there looking for you by his Spirit. And I take such encouragement in that, that even though I'm lost and even though I haven't been cared for, somebody through God's grace is searching for me. Oh, I'll tell you what. If it was up to me, I would be lost forever. But God sends those who are looking for those who've not been cared for. And he senses. And he sends that care forth that you can respond to. And so God's posture in the first place is to see the Son of man shouldering the lost sheep, suffering for him. And in the second parable, the posture of God is to see him searching out the lost coin. But possibly most precious to us, I know to me, is the third parable. It's the parable of the prodigal son. I won't take the time to read all the way through it. Yes, I will. We need to. And he said there was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them. Remember, I want to stop here and say Remember, we're not just talking about that old sinner out there. You look in here and see if this doesn't speak to many of our own attitudes. Okay, Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country. There he squandered his property and loose living. That is, he pleased himself. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country and he began to be in want. So when he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the fields to fear feed the swine. And he would have gladly fed on the pods that the swine ate. And no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and even to spare? But I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hard servants. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. The prodigal son the first we saw the sheep lost through stupidity, the coin lost through carelessness. And here, much to our dismay, the son lost to rebellion. And I guess we'd have to admit, wouldn't we, that most of us, if we're lost, it's because we've chosen to be so. We've chosen to take. To pick and choose the good things of the Lord and say, father, give me my blessing. And we've chosen to take our eternal security and all the rest and kind of plug God into that very nifty little compartment which says salvation. While we go on merrily squandering, if you will, our life on the things it pleases. We deliberately choose to flee the implications of our relationship to God. We deliberately choose to indulge ourselves. And I know that there are many out here who unwittingly perhaps, and yet even within that, a measure of your own self. What's the best word? I guess self? Pleasure. Have fallen into the trap of using God for your own ends. And so we, like the prodigal, find ourselves in a distant country kind of far away from God. We want to share in the good things and we even want to be sons. Notice that the prodigal was never dismissed as being A son. But we're not really ready to live under the authority of the Father to live under the responsibility of being a son. We want the insurance policy. We want to be sure that if it gets down to it, we're going to go to heaven. But we're not really willing to live where God wants us to be. Then verse 17 is a very precious verse. Look at it. When the son came to himself, one Bible says, when he came to his senses. You see, there comes a time when you realize that it's not any good out here, that you're going to die in your relationship to God. And it may take a great famine in your life. It may take a pulling out of the very things that you hold precious, that you come to your senses and say, God, Father, I need to return to you and you realize your unworthiness in your own eyes to be a son or a daughter. And you turn back and beloved, most of us would think that when you turn back to God, you see him there as the Father that's going to be waiting by the doorstep. I told you it was going to happen like that, didn't I? Don't you? I knew it was going to happen. How many young people I've dealt with in the past who would have an incident of personal tragedy? I can think of one young man who had taken the car, his father's car, out one night when he really wasn't supposed to. His father was away on a business trip. And on this little excursion, he rammed it into another car in a parking lot. Front end was really damaged pretty badly. And on his way back home, he stopped at the church and came to my office. He was like broken up. And he said, I just know what my father's going to say. I just know how he's going to handle it. He's going to be standing there at the door and he's going to lift his hand and he's going to start pointing at me and he's going to. And, you know, he went on. The guy was basically just a basket case. And most of us, when we think of our Father's response to our sinfulness, isn't that what we see? And we feel like we deserve it, don't we? But beloved, if you're lost today, if you're unable to be what God wants you to be, if you come to your senses and reach, repent and return to the Father, look at the posture of God toward you. Verse 20. And he arose and came to his Father. But while he was yet at a Distance. His father saw him. If he was at a distance and his father saw him, what does that say about the Father? He was looking. He's looking. He's searching for those who would return to this better way. He wasn't standing back there in the porch sulking and mulling. Can't wait till he comes back. I'm going to pound on him. No. God is looking. 1st Chronicles 16:29 says, the Spirit searches the earth to and fro, looking for those who would walk in righteousness. And then the Bible says he had compassion. Do you know the compassion of Jesus this morning? The Bible says in John 11 that Jesus had compassion on the family of Lazarus. And there it says that he wept. He wept. He understood the predicament of those people. God understands our predicament, loved ones. He weeps with us when we weep. He knows how we feel to be lost. He agonized about answering the call of God in his own life, did he not? Where did Jesus weep? Where did Jesus shed drops of blood as sweat? So I think that he knows what. What we feel when it comes to answering his call. He had compassion on us. Then he ran. To him, it wasn't a picture at all of the Son scraping and crawling to the Father's feet and putting his head on his shoes and saying, oh, oh, God. Oh, Father, oh, Father, what have I done? But rather we see the picture of the Father. And I'll tell you something. When love runs towards you, you don't know what to do with it. Is that right? When love runs toward us, it's such a strange experience that we don't know how to receive it. People many times will say, boy, they come on really strong, don't they? You know, you ever hear that, what they're really saying, it's somebody who's reaching out a hand, Love. Because we have built up walls of defensiveness, and we just don't understand how someone could reach out and love. And then what does it say? The Father embraced him. One thing that we do around here every once in a while is we say, give one another a holy hug. And the tragedy of our culture is that when two men would hug immediately, that means something very distasteful is happening. Something that we just don't want to be part of. For some people, it even means that. Well, we know that there are some weirdos in our culture. And yet the Bible tells us, Paul writes in almost all of his letters, greet one another with an embrace or with a holy kiss. Just stretch out those arms of love. And can you see the Father opening his arms to the Son and embracing? What does it stand for when you see someone standing like that? What does it mean? Basically, what's the word? Welcome. Acceptance. I accept you even as a lost sinner. That staggers us because we think somehow we have to earn our way back into acceptance. And then the Bible says that the Father kissed him. The Greek word there literally means profusely kissed, over and over again. God didn't just plant one and say welcome back over and over again. He lavished kisses on this lost son. And I don't care how strange you think that is, God the Father kisses you in his own heart with his own lips, as it were. That is a kiss of love that eternally changes. So we who are lost in this struggle to follow Jesus see that if we will repent and return to our Father. He sees us far off. He has compassion. His heart is open. He runs to us. He embraces us. I think in the King James, it says, he falls on his neck. That picture to us comes to me, kisses, praise. And I want us to see next week as we deal with the response of this prodigal, what that forgiveness really meant. We're going to deal with what it means to kill the fatted calf and put on the best robe and the ring and the sandals, and what the fullness of that forgiveness that the Father extends to this world. You can lose one important thought here. Even though there's only three parables, there's four illustrations of being lost. Now, his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. Hey, a party. And he called one of the servants and asked, what's this party all about? He said to him, your brother has come. Well, your father's killed the fatty calf because he has received him safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came up and entreated him. That's an important phrase. But he answered his father, lo, these many years I've served you, and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who's devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf. He said to him, son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It is fitting to make Mary and be glad for this. Your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost in his family, lost through ignorance or stupidity, lost through carelessness. Lost through rebellion. Beloved, some of us have been lost through duty. And I think the tragedy of this is that so many of us well intended believers today are lost in the religious duty of the church system. We find ourselves having served God and worked for him all of our lives. Served and obeyed is what the elder son said. I've been a good boy. Do you see the predicament of those who have done gone through the motions, done what they thought God wanted all along, serving on this committee, doing that thing, doing this act of charity and this, I don't need to elaborate it, because many of us have walked that path, haven't we, of religious servitude. And yet in that we have never had a vital relationship with the Father. And that's what this little part of the story is about. Here's a son who had done all the right things, but had never really known and shared in his father's heart. Because had he shared in his father's heart, what would he have done? If the prodigal, when the prodigal came out, he would have rejoiced. And how many of you know people that once you were filled with the Holy Spirit said, wait a minute, this is kind of strange. Once you became alive with the glow of Jesus in your life, you said, I don't need that. I've been a good Christian for 30 years. I heard that. And it threatens the religious beautiful ones among us. And that's a very. It's a pitiful posture. I feel so sorry for that son who could not enter into the joy of his Father and the return. And yet even there, don't we see that the Father came out and treated him? See, the love of the Father is still the same toward that one. And so in every one of those four predicaments, the posture of God always is, where are you? This morning I asked myself then, Lord, where am I today? Am I lost through my own ignorance and just keeping my head down and minding my own business and not really getting too excited about anything as much? And at the grass. Am I lost today because I felt myself burned about not being cared for? Am I lost today because of rebellion in my own heart? I just don't want to walk that way. God, give me what's mine. I'm going to go out and have a good time. But when that security bell rings up there in heaven, I'm going to be right near the front of the line. Am I lost today by religious. When I say lost, understand what I mean? I don't mean Just some brazen old derelict down there on Liberty Avenue. I mean, many of us here, I do, many of us here with smiles and a bit of this little sunshine on our face, but inside we're lost when it comes to being scored. In every case. The Bible says when you repent, the Father's there to meet you and there's great rejoicing in heaven. Oh, wow. How many of you honestly would say that you've always thought thought of that in terms of when somebody first received Christ. And I believe it means that as well. There's so much in this Bible that we write off for somebody else. We write off for the old sinner. We write off for the millennium kingdom. Oh, glory. We're going to have great relationship with God when we get to heaven. Walk through the gates and Suddenly we're instantly Mr. Dynamic Christian. I'll tell you, I've said it before and I'll say it again. What you are in heaven will simply be an extrapolation of what you've become in Jesus here on this earth. I don't believe God's going to move you in there and suddenly you're instantly, perfectly fully mature, as it were. That's what the Bible's about, is the process of coming into that fullness. Now that you can live fully in it, then do you want that? Oh, but it costs us. Luke 14. I just thank God for showing me that. Luke 14. A call of discipleship, counting the cost. That's what we need to heed. But the Father's posture coming after us, we need to receive it. They don't. See the Father who searches for us, who suffers for us, who sings at our return. Jesus, Father. Lord, I thank you today for this revelation of your own heart. Lord, whatever the predicament we find ourselves in, whatever the cause for our being lost, your posture toward us is open, accepted, forgiving, searching, suffering. O Lord, Lord, stir in us today, Lord, whichever of these need to be placed on your shoulders and carried into the flock, Lord, where we can heed this call, discipleship, where we can get on this narrow way, Lord, walk in the joy therein that we might share in the joy of the angels who sing with rejoicings because we're willing to repent. You know what you're saying to many hearts today, I ask this morning if. Because we believe that the Lord's called us to respond to this word, if you know that this morning the Lord just through the simple way in which he gave me this morning was speaking to a situation in your life where you need to repent and return. You might walk in this way if that's your situation. You're a Christian and you know that you have Jesus in your heart. But you know that he doesn't have all of you. If that's where you are. I want to ask you to do something. I want to ask you to stand where you are and say, I want to repent and return, Father, that he might carry me. Bring me on. Let the Lord speak to your own heart, whoever you are. Lord, we pray for this beloved. Would you just extend your hand, lay hand on these people that are standing around you. Go ahead. Pray for them in the spirit. Go ahead. Minister to them. Jesus, Lord. Every lost one. Your father. Every lost one, Lord, I pray. Send the spirit, Lord, to search for their inner being, Lord. Let them see the sun beside them, Lord, as they repent. Place them on your shoulders. Carry them, Lord, where their own legs cannot walk with them, Lord. Where they would stumble on their own. Impart to them life, Lord, and heavenly Father. Let them see you as they're running to them and racing them, kissing them, Father. Complete it. Bring out the festal garments, Lord. Put the ring in their finger and the sandals on their feet, Lord. And kill the fatted calf that they might see the fullness of life that