Sermon manuscript:
That we already understand forgiveness is something that we
can take for granted—particularly as Christians. There is nothing more central
to Christianity than the forgiveness of sins. Accordingly, we talk about
forgiveness a lot. Since we talk about it a lot, we assume that we must already
understand it. But maybe familiarity is not enough to understand forgiveness. For
example, if forgiveness is to be forgiveness it seems to need to be somewhat
surprising. If it is not surprising, then it turns into something else.
In Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son, the prodigal son is
forgiven. It is surprising. He was hoping that his father would take him on as
a hired hand. Instead he is received back with love and honor. This is a
delightful surprise.
But suppose we change the story a little bit. Suppose we
have this younger son who has wasted his father’s estate with prodigal living.
He’s off at a bar, far away, chatting away with his buddies. He tells them he
has to make a trip home: “I’ll just go back to the old man. He’s got plenty of
money. He can give me some. I’m his son, after all, and he has to give it to
me.” Relationships like this are by no means uncommon—especially with rich
kids. Rich kids get a taste of the good life, and they assume that they can
always get some more from dear old dad. Sometimes dear old dad gets sick of
this and cuts them off.
This, then, is another surprise. The rich kid has certain
expectations about what the father will do. He’ll always forgive—that’s just the
arrangement that we have in place. Then, all of a sudden, there’s no more
forgiveness. But we probably shouldn’t call this forgiveness. Forgiveness that
is assumed is not really forgiveness. Probably a better word for this kind of
arrangement is abuse. The rich kid abuses his father until the father won’t put
up with it anymore.
And sometimes, even when father doesn’t want to put up with
it anymore, he can be compelled. Fathers can be weak. If the father tries to
cut off the kid, and the kid is psychologically brazen enough, the kid can intimidate
and threaten the father—crush the father, if you will—until the father has no
other choice but to continue with the gravy train.
What if we tried to do this kind of thing with God? What if
we thought of God as a rather weak character who could be bullied into
forgiving our sins? Our theology says that God has to forgive. It’s part of the
rules. In such a situation a person could assume that it doesn’t matter how
much a person sins. God will forgive. He has to.
While this might be what some theologians believe, Jesus
plainly teaches something different. You cannot bank on sinning as though you
can always count on be forgiven. Jesus says, “Strive to enter through the
narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.
Once the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will begin to
stand outside and knock on the door saying, ‘Lord, open for us!’ He will tell
you in reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will begin to
say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets.’ And he
will say, ‘I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’”
God is not like the weak father in our pretend scenario. He
cannot be bullied into letting us into heaven. If we haven’t cared one bit that
our sins have angered him, then it seems that he won’t care one bit when he
bars us from heaven and sends us to hell. The Bible says, “God cannot be
mocked.” Therefore we should not take Jesus’s gracious, merciful parable
today as though some kind of principle of inexhaustible forgiveness is being
laid down that enables me to sin with reckless abandon. If that were what the
parable were teaching, then the father would be a ridiculous, lazy, weak
coward. I assure you, God is not like
that.
So what is our God like? He is just like he is portrayed in
this parable. He is not lazy or weak. He is good, strong, kind, and—let’s not
overreact and end up steering into the other ditch—forgiving. The most
important thing is that all of the father’s actions are motivated by love. This
means that he was not driven by principles or regulations or guilt or fear. He
saw his boy and loved him. He acted accordingly. He forgave him and received
him back. In fact, the forgiveness happens in the blink of an eye. He does not
dwell on whether he should forgive or not forgive. That decision is made in a
split second without him even knowing it when he saw him from afar. By the time
he had hitched up his robe to start running he had already forgiven him and was
now working on receiving him.
Principles and regulations are not at work here. If they
were, then the father wouldn’t be able to avoid the very important question of
setting a precedent. If he acts this way now, what will happen if he does it
again? Guilt, also, is not at work. The man isn’t judging himself. He isn’t
judging his son. If he were, then there’d have to be some kind of reckoning,
and who knows how that might turn out? Nor is there fear, even though the
situation is loaded with pitfalls. What if the son gets the itch again? What if
he pawns that ring, that family heir loom, and heads off again? What if the
whole relationship turns sour? All these things and more are very reasonable,
in a way, but the heart has reasons of its own of which the mind knows nothing.
Divine love was in the driver’s seat.
Love is what is primary here. Forgiveness is just a facet of
that love. That is what makes the forgiveness genuine. If forgiveness were the only
thing, if it were just a matter of cancelling guilt, then we’d be dealing with
something else here.
Let me explain. Let’s suppose another alternate scenario.
Suppose that the father is as forgiving as all get out. The son comes back and
the father immediately gives him a whole new inheritance. He does it all over
again, just like before. The son gets penny for penny all that he had wasted. He’s
given a blank check. Go and waste it all again to your heart’s content.
I hope that you can see that this “forgiveness” is far from
loving. In fact it can be vicious and wrathful. It can be a way of sending
people away and keeping people away. They can have the money, they can have the
license to do as they please, but they won’t get a single sliver of the
person’s heart. This is the kind of thing that Paul talks about in his famous
“love chapter:” “If I give away everything I own, and if I give up my body
that I may be burned, but do not have love, I am of no use to anyone.”
It is a terrible perversion of Christianity when it is
assumed that God’s grace is nothing other than a get-out-of-hell-free card. The
debt gets cancelled. You’re off the hook. Then what? Go do it all over again?
Live however you want, just don’t forget to take along your get-out-of-hell-free
card?
This is not God’s grace. In a way, if it were true, it
would be vicious and wrathful. It would
basically be God saying that he doesn’t care about you. Go, live however you
want. Have it your way.
God’s grace is such that not only does he forgive, he also receives
us as one of his own. We become one of the family. We are given honor like this
son in the parable. His filthy rags are replaced with attractive, comfortable
clothes. His poverty is taken away with a luxurious ring. He is to sit at the
table as a member of the family and eat with them. There are a lot higher and
more valuable things that are being dealt with here than mere money. He’s
brought back into the family’s confidence, the family’s business.
Jesus once said to his disciples: “You are my friends if
you continue to do the things that I instruct you. I no longer call you
servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have
called you friends, because everything that I heard from my Father, I have made
known to you.”
Jesus calls you a friend, a confidant. If there were ever a
situation where somebody should be kept out, excluded, it should be in a
relationship with Jesus, and, through him, to the God-head. Theoretically and
philosophically we should just be content with continuing to exist in our
relationship with God. Maybe, just maybe, we can hope that he won’t hold our
sins against us.
But not only does he not hold our sins against us, we are
brought into everything. All that he has is ours. We hold all things in common
with Jesus. God is our father. Mary is our mother. Jesus is our brother. We are
brought into the family business. The family business is love and truth. With
love and truth we spurn the works of darkness and deceit. We put on the armor
of light. We are made more and more like Jesus, our brother. We lay down our
lives for our friends. These are some examples of the good works that God has
prepared beforehand, that we, his Christians, should walk in them.
Being forgiven, being received for Jesus’s sake, makes all
the difference. There is nothing more central to the Christian faith than this
forgiveness. But God’s grace doesn’t stop there. Sanctification, God making us
holy, is also God’s grace. Without God incorporating us into the family
business, forgiveness is alienating. It is merely paying somebody off so as to
leave you alone. God does not want to leave us alone. He would like to run to
us, embrace us, put a ring on our finger, and a robe to cover us. He would like
to kill the fatted calf, feast, and make merry, with us seated beside him. All
of this is to say that he would love us.
There are many churches, and some in our own circles as
well, who stop short at forgiveness. They sound very Christian. They say that
we are all sinners. They say that Jesus died for all. Thus we are all forgiven.
These things are all as right as rain. But then they go on to say or imply that
this means we have a blank check. All our debts are cancelled, so let’s sin all
the more so that grace may abound. Forgiveness is turned into a principle, and
they are going to squeeze as much as they can out of this principle to their
own advantage.
There’s a lot of truth in what these folks say. We are,
indeed, sinners. God, indeed, forgives for Jesus’s sake. These folks like those
parts of the Bible. What they are not so excited about is the life that Jesus
lays out for his disciples to live—the family business, you might say. That is
not what they are hoping for. What they really want is to go live in a far off
country. There they can do as they please. Maybe, if the money runs out, they
might come back and see dear old dad. Otherwise they are going to keep their
distance.
But the Lord our God is a jealous God. He will either have
all of you or none of you. He will not just have part of you. There is no
element of hell, no pet sin, that we can take with us to heaven, no matter how
many times we come to church for the forgiveness of sins. That would be like
the younger son secretly eating the nasty carob pods that he brought with him
on his journey home instead of eating the nutritious food laid out for him by
his father.
It might be scary to think that you have to give up these
illicit things that you love so much. But that is a misplaced fear. Just look
at your loving Father. He will help you. He knows your weaknesses and sins.
Nonetheless, he wants you to be further incorporated and integrated, closer and
closer to him. He already holds you in honor. That is for sure. After all, he
has caused you to hear this message of his grace and wants you to apply it to
yourself.
Money is one thing; the father’s heart is another. God would
sooner give you his heart. This gift presupposes forgiveness as you are brought
back into the family.
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