Sermon Notes – Sunday September 26th

Sermon Title: The Amazing Grace of God(Click Here to watch Sermon)

Pastor Richard Brown

Scripture Reading: Luke 15:1-24

Jesus’s entire ministry was a little over 3 years long. He preached that the Kingdom of God had come near and that people could come in and enter it through faith and repentance. Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He had a few months left to live, He was determined to fulfil God’s purpose for His life. His purpose was the redemption of humanity. The Apostle Luke portrayed Jesus as focusing His attention on fulfilling God’s purpose. He was resolute in the closing hours of His life. He set His face as a flint to fulfil the purpose of God. Luke also showed the growing drama that Jesus’s life brought about with His increasing confrontations with the Pharisees, Scribes and the Sadducees; they didn’t understand the person and the work. Jesus was always clarifying the good news of the gospel, God’s grace, love and the plan of salvation. It is very clearly seen in Luke chapter 15.

If you’ve been to church more than 3 times, you would have heard the parables out of Luke 15. This chapter is called the gospel within the gospel because it contains the essence of the good news Jesus came to tell. Tax collectors, as irreligious as they were, approached Him, and they wanted to hear what He had to say. This is the third time Luke mentioned tax collectors and sinners. The first time is in Luke 5:20; Jesus had just saved Matthew (Levi) and so Matthew throws a party for Jesus and invites his other tax collector friends and the Pharisees and Scribes realize all these unholy people are at a party with Jesus who is seen as a rabbi. So they grumble and question why Jesus was there eating with sinners. Jesus answers and says, “Those who are well have no need of a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but the sinners”. (Luke 5:31)

The second time we see Jesus’s interaction with sinners and tax collectors is in Luke chapter 7, where Jesus is accused of being a friend of sinners. Pharisees and Scribes perceived the sinners and the tax collectors as murderers, and social and spiritual outcasts respectively. Why? Tax collectors were part of the Roman bureaucracy and were considered to be traitors among the people of God. Yet these tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. They sensed Jesus cared, that He was interested in them, and He had something to say to them. If you draw near to Jesus you will see that He has all these things for you too. The Scribes are appalled that Jesus would spend time with sinners, much less eat with them as in this age, this behaviour inferred acceptance. The Pharisees and the Scribes were quick to mention out of Exodus 18 that the rabbi – true ones – were not to associate with sinners and tax collectors. And, it is in response to their grumbling and their criticism that Jesus begins a trilogy. Luke 15 is one parable with three stories in it. Each is designed to reveal the amazing grace of God towards every person. God has amazing grace for lost people; people considered as being ungodly and immoral. There is amazing grace that God has for those people. The importance of lost people and those disregarded by the pious are a priority to God.

In the stories of the sheep, the coin, and the son, something is lost, found, and then there is rejoicing. The parables show the extreme or the extent or the recklessness of God’s love. They show the lengths that a person will go to to retrieve something valuable and lost. The shepherd leaves the 99 for the 1. The woman tears the place upside down until she finds the 1 coin. She still had 9 coins left, but she tears the place upside down until she finds the 1 coin. The father waits with open arms until the son returns. Jesus’s assignment was to expose to us the grace of God. And, this is still His assignment. We should be thankful that we can approach our God and He has plenty of grace. Where sin did abound, grace did much more to abound.

Let’s hone in on the prodigal. According to Jewish culture, the prodigal son asked for a selfish request. His focus was on, “Give me”. He cares for no one else. In a society that highly revered parents, what he asked for was the equivalent of saying, “Dad I can’t wait for you to die. Just give me what you have for me.” The younger asked for his inheritance while his dad was still living. That was an insult and disrespectful. Most assume that he was greedy. But he had no need for greed; he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. This wasn’t about money for the son. What was the reason for this request then? The problem wasn’t greed, but dissatisfaction. He was tired of living under the rule of his dad. He had a lust for power and control. He wanted to live life on his own terms. Many of us want this too and we end up walking out of the protection of our Lord and Father. Notice how the father doesn’t challenge the son’s decision. He doesn’t say to the son, “I think this is a bad idea.” The father is gracious. He could have refused and kicked the son out, could have had him stoned and put to death. The Bible says:  “…And he divided unto them his living” (Luke 15:12). Why? When Pastor Brown looks at this text, he considers the father and he knows that what his son is requesting is not good for him and it is not the right time. Many would say that if he was a loving father, he’d protect the son and say “No, not the right time.” Yet, the father knows that experience is the best teacher. The struggle will teach you. Some things can only be learned through experience. The betrayal will teach you. Being fired will teach you. The divorce will teach you.

Firstly, grace will allow you to go through some stuff that you could have avoided if you were just obedient.  This is because there will be a lesson and an experience you will gain going through what you go through. Secondly, grace will keep you while you are going through it. The father saw the son before the son saw the father. All the while, the son was straying and living prodigal, the father was watching for the son. Anyone able to testify that God kept you while you weren’t thinking of God; in situations where you should have lost your life? God is watching for you even when you are far from Him. God is watching when you are in the wrong relationship and associations and when you are strung out on drugs, watching when they persecute, reject and betray you. God is watching when you cry and He is watching when your days are filled with dark clouds. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me (Psalm 23:4). God is watching me and His grace and His mercy surrounds and follows me. God’s amazing grace is always watching us. His eye is on the sparrow and we know He watches over us. Third, grace will let you lose the wrong things and qualify you for greater things. The Bible says that there arose a great famine and he lost everything and began to be in want. He was just like Job. This calamity took his friends, fitness and his faith. His associates abandoned him, his friends could do him no good. He no longer sees himself as a son of his father. Grace will allow you to lose everything; lose the wrong things and qualify you for the greater things. This son lost his fitness, friends and his faith. The psalmist says, “That it was good for me that I’d been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes” (Psalm 119:17). Learning thy statutes means that I must pay attention to your Word. Sometimes, you don’t pay attention to what God is saying until friends’ abandon you, you get sick, or you face calamity. The son left his father’s home saying “Give me”. Now, he returns saying “Make me”. The grace of God will help you get it together. Grace will allow you to lose your attitude. Grace will make you who you ought to be. The grace of God will teach you how to live godly; how to feel and it will adjust your emotions and mindset. This son doesn’t realize that he was living under the grace of God all the while that he was feeling riotous. God knows how to pull you in. Grace will qualify you in spite of your past. Grace qualifies us in spite of our past. The son returns confessing that he is not worthy. He confesses he shouldn’t be there, he has no right, doesn’t belong. But grace will claim you, “For this my son, he was lost (Luke 15:24).” In whatever state you are, the father sees his son, and claims him as his son. Not only will grace claim you, grace will celebrate you. The father says, “Kill the fatted calf and let us rejoice” (Luke 15:23). God’s grace will celebrate you even when you are still stinking from the fields of sin. Come just as you are. Grace will claim you, celebrate you and cover you. He says bring the best robe, put a ring on his finger. God has a grace that will cover your mess. Grace does not expose you, grace covers you until you get yourself together. Grace will hide your mess from the eyes of your critic and your hater. Grace will cover you. There is a grace that is coming into your life and it is getting ready to frustrate some people.

When we look at this parable of the prodigal son, we know that the father represents Jesus and the younger son is the one who strayed from God while the elder son is representative of the Pharisees and the Scribes. It is these that feel you aren’t qualified to sing or talk about God because of how you have lived. For those of you who are reading this that feel like you have messed up so bad that you don’t belong, those of you who think that you went too far – grace says to you, “You can come home no matter what shape you are in. You can come home no matter where you’ve been, still smelling, still affected, still addicted, you can come home.” God says, “I have a grace that will claim you, celebrate you and cover you.” Grace that is greater than all of your sin. God has a grace that will surprise some people. When they try to criticize you, let them know that favour isn’t fair. Every person walking in relationship with Jesus Christ knows that it is not us but God’s riches at Christ’s expense. God has riches for you, that no matter what you’ve done and where you’ve been, if you would come to yourself like the prodigal and come home, you will experience His amazing grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I’m found, I was blind but now I see. The doctrine of grace is central to Christianity. Grace is not a free pass to sin, nor to live a riotous life and a prodigal life. Grace is given for you to live right and be freed from sin. You can’t get up out of that mess, except by the grace of God. At the core of theology is the grace of God and at the core of this theology is the person and the work and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The mystery of grace is why God would bother, with someone as wretched and lost as us? Why would the grace of God search for someone as wretched as me? Grace is tearing up their lives, turning things upside down till we are found. There is a grace that is following some of our family members’ and friends. There is an expectancy. We need to expect our loved ones to be saved. Expect the person that you’re praying for to be saved. Celebrate, don’t be like the Scribes and the Pharisees, celebrate as they are valuable to God. God has an amazing grace; no matter what you’ve done, God’s grace allows you to come just as you are.