WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.400 So, this evening we're looking at the third of our series of four on a Sunday evening 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:07.879 entitled, Miserable as Sin. 00:00:07.879 --> 00:00:08.880 Okay? 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:12.439 So, I reckoned if we were going to carry this on for a few more weeks, we probably have 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:20.000 no one coming at church at night, because it seems such a miserable kind of subject 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:21.000 to deal with. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:22.280 But I hope it's not miserable. 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:23.719 It's not meant to be miserable. 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:27.879 The theme is meant to be provocative, I guess, but it's not really meant to be miserable. 00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:37.479 It is meant to look at the reality of what sin does in our lives in order to point us 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:38.479 more to Jesus. 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:43.879 That's what it's meant to do, because the more we understand what sin is actually like, 00:00:43.879 --> 00:00:47.960 the more it will push us towards Jesus and know His wholeness and His healing and His 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:50.840 shalom, because that's what we looked at the first week, wasn't it? 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:52.840 The breaking of shalom. 00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:58.680 And then we looked at sin and how it divides people and divides us from God and the damage 00:00:58.680 --> 00:00:59.680 that does. 00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:05.640 And this evening, we're kind of on this spiral downwards and we're looking at disintegration 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:12.920 and how sin actually, I'm sure there's another word for disintegration that I've been looking 00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:15.520 for all week and I haven't found it. 00:01:15.520 --> 00:01:17.840 I can't think of it. 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:20.120 Something like discombulation or something like that. 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:24.520 It is the coming apart, the disintegration of what is whole. 00:01:24.520 --> 00:01:30.240 And rather than looking at it theologically, I want us to think about it as something that 00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:34.520 can be so damaging in our own lives. 00:01:34.520 --> 00:01:40.560 Not that theological definitions are unimportant, but really want to get across the destructiveness 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:45.640 behind its sometimes alluring beauty. 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:47.760 Okay? 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:54.600 There's an alluring beauty about sin and I want to get across that as well. 00:01:54.600 --> 00:02:01.680 So the theme this evening really is the trajectory that sin takes us on, because what it does, 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:05.040 it puts self in the place of God, okay? 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:08.400 So that's really the core of what we're thinking about this evening. 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:15.879 And that is the deepest battle you and I face on a daily basis, is selfishness. 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:19.039 Is enthroning ourselves in the place of God. 00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:26.879 You see that most closely and most powerfully in Gethsemane, where Jesus says, not my will 00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:28.680 but yours be done. 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:35.159 That's our biggest battle, is every day saying, Lord, not my will but yours be done. 00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:36.639 So it's selfishness. 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:41.039 And sin is the enthronement of ourselves and the dethroning of God. 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:45.000 And I think the results of that are not always clear cut. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:46.560 They're not always black and white. 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:52.719 And it's not always, it's not necessarily a spiral downwards, but there is an end game. 00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:54.879 So I want to look briefly at self-rule. 00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:55.879 I should stop saying briefly. 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:58.719 I get a rough for saying briefly, but I am going to be trying. 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:00.319 Brian will give me a rough. 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:01.879 I go on, past half past. 00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:06.080 So self-rule and then one or two other things. 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:12.599 But self-rule, we see it in this parable, this great, this wonderful and powerful parable 00:03:12.599 --> 00:03:18.719 where the prodigal son says, give me my share of the property and what is coming to me. 00:03:18.719 --> 00:03:20.840 I want what is due to me. 00:03:20.840 --> 00:03:22.680 I don't want to be under my father. 00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:25.159 I want to have my share of the estate. 00:03:25.159 --> 00:03:27.519 I want to be in control. 00:03:27.519 --> 00:03:33.120 And goes back to the prototypical rebellion in Genesis chapter 3, where Adam and Eve said 00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:34.319 the same thing. 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:36.799 We want exactly what you have, God. 00:03:36.799 --> 00:03:38.680 We actually want to be like you. 00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:43.360 We want to know good and evil as well and to have no rules and no regulations from you 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:44.860 or anyone else. 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:46.719 And there's two things really that that speaks. 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:50.280 Self-rule speaks of two things, I'm sure, among other many things. 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:55.400 First is a sense of entitlement and then a quest for freedom. 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:59.400 So there's a sense of entitlement from the prodigal here, isn't there? 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:01.280 I want what is due to me. 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:02.520 I'm entitled to it. 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:03.960 I don't care if you're still alive. 00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:09.480 And I don't care if it's supposed to be for when you die, I want it now. 00:04:09.480 --> 00:04:12.520 Adam and Eve, I want to eat the fruit. 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.120 It's my, it's our right to do that. 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:17.639 And I want a good life. 00:04:17.639 --> 00:04:21.480 I want all the benefits of life on my terms. 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:26.960 And that's the reality when self is on the throne, we have that sense of entitlement 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:32.720 that life owes us, that other people owe us, and even God owes us. 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:38.000 Because we're at the center and everything else revolves around us. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:43.720 But of course that puts us, doesn't it, always onto a collision course with God and with 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:47.440 others because we're not in the throne of the universe. 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:53.400 And the world doesn't revolve around us, especially when things go wrong. 00:04:53.400 --> 00:05:00.080 When things go wrong and things happen out of our control, our self-centered desire to 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:07.839 be in control of everything causes bitterness and disgruntlement and blame. 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:15.439 And that's the kind of culture we live in as people, I mean internally, because we find 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:18.240 that that's a good, Adam did that, didn't he? 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.959 Adam blamed God, Adam blamed Eve. 00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:24.159 Things were out of his control. 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:32.720 The prodigal came to that place where, well he blamed God, blamed his father for keeping 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:35.520 him and not giving him his share of the state. 00:05:35.520 --> 00:05:40.240 He maybe blamed the famine when it came and maybe he blamed everyone else who didn't come 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:44.400 to his aid when he was eating, wanting to eat the pigs food. 00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:50.800 And so there's that sense of entitlement which brings great problems when we are enthroned 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:53.879 as it did for the prodigal. 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:57.680 But that self-rule doesn't only give us a sense of entitlement but also a quest for 00:05:57.680 --> 00:05:58.680 freedom. 00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:03.040 Satan says, you know, you'll be like God. 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:04.040 You'll know good and evil. 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:07.519 How brilliant and freeing is that going to be? 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:10.959 And the prodigal here, he wanted to go into a far country. 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:12.680 He wanted to be in control of his own life. 00:06:12.680 --> 00:06:17.879 He wanted the freedom from the drudgery of work and being in his father's house. 00:06:17.879 --> 00:06:21.719 He wanted to make his own decisions autonomy. 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:28.440 And in both cases we have a picture there of relegating God and relegating others in 00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:29.800 the quest for freedom. 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:32.640 It's a dubious freedom. 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:34.560 There's no absolute freedom. 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:40.880 Our only freedom, our only true freedom is living as we were created to do in relationship 00:06:40.880 --> 00:06:44.280 with our good and loving maker. 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:52.599 But the deceit of sin is that it ignores that and it ignores the fact that we, in seeking 00:06:52.599 --> 00:06:58.719 freedom and being enthroned, become enslaved to our own desires and appetites and nature 00:06:58.719 --> 00:07:01.359 and nurture and bodies and minds. 00:07:01.359 --> 00:07:07.079 But the prodigal, the prodigal was single-minded, the prodigal son here. 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:12.159 He was obsessed in following his self-centered dream. 00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:16.600 He wanted to dethrone his father and he wanted to be in charge. 00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:24.880 And that's a picture of what self-centeredness does and sin as a result. 00:07:24.880 --> 00:07:29.280 He ignored what it would do to his father, what it would do to his community, to his 00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:34.560 family, to his brother and to the work of the estate. 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:39.080 It was a damaging reordering of love. 00:07:39.080 --> 00:07:40.240 And that's what sin is. 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:46.840 It's a damaging reordering of love away from God and others and focused on ourselves. 00:07:46.840 --> 00:07:49.840 That's where sinful selfishness comes from. 00:07:49.840 --> 00:07:56.199 So that it becomes about my feelings, my longings, my desires, my decisions, my morality. 00:07:56.199 --> 00:07:59.600 It's subjective and individualistic. 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:04.000 And we even see community and church through a me lens. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:05.160 What can it be for? 00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:07.720 What can it do for me? 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:19.480 So self-rule is at the core of sin and it's at the core of the destruction that sin brings 00:08:19.480 --> 00:08:20.480 into life. 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:23.240 But I want to make a second point here. 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:28.360 And this is slightly broader than this passage, but it involves this passage. 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:30.200 Sin is about self-rule. 00:08:30.200 --> 00:08:36.240 And I will come to the end towards two things, to disintegration and then to the gospel, because 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.240 the gospel needs to be at the core of all, of course. 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:44.320 But the second point I want to make is that sin is deceptively good. 00:08:44.320 --> 00:08:46.120 Sin is deceptively good. 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:51.240 Verse 13 tells us that he went into a far country and he squandered his property and 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:54.960 reckless or wild living. 00:08:54.960 --> 00:09:01.279 And I think we misrepresent sin when we express it simply in terms of moral evil, which we 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:05.399 all are repulsed by and is repugnant. 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:10.459 Most people, Christians or non-Christians, recoil from a very evil. 00:09:10.459 --> 00:09:13.159 But sin is much more subtle than that. 00:09:13.159 --> 00:09:16.039 It does involve that, but it's much more subtle than that. 00:09:16.039 --> 00:09:20.159 It involves taking what is good and making it ultimate. 00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:21.159 Okay? 00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:27.319 Taking what is good, the good gifts of God, but making these things ultimate, just like 00:09:27.319 --> 00:09:28.639 probably the prodigal did. 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:33.879 The things he did were maybe not necessarily immoral in and of themselves, but he expressed 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:37.279 and engaged in them in immoral ways. 00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:44.439 God ourselves and God's good gifts, we can take them and we can use them to replace God 00:09:44.439 --> 00:09:47.639 and they can become ultimate things. 00:09:47.639 --> 00:09:50.399 That's the deepest deception, isn't it? 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:51.399 Isn't that the deepest? 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:56.840 Because most people don't really understand or think about themselves as evil or wicked 00:09:56.840 --> 00:10:00.559 or immoral in these ways. 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:05.919 But we see that when we take the good things of God and make them ultimate things, they're 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:08.759 bad saviours. 00:10:08.759 --> 00:10:09.759 They're bad gods. 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:11.879 They're bad for worshiping. 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:17.239 So when aging comes, when trouble comes, there are no answers. 00:10:17.239 --> 00:10:23.399 When we make the point and the reason for living, a relationship or sexuality or our 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:31.319 ambition or our work or our career or our personal ambitions, it's a terrible burden 00:10:31.319 --> 00:10:34.319 to put on these things because they can't save us. 00:10:34.319 --> 00:10:36.679 They can't give us ultimate meaning in life. 00:10:36.679 --> 00:10:42.240 They can't give us the wholeness and the shalom that we were created to enjoy because we were 00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:46.360 created to live in relationship with God. 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:52.679 These things can't deal with the sin and the emptiness and the autonomy that we are 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:54.599 living under. 00:10:54.599 --> 00:11:00.519 Autonomy can't bear the weight of glory of being image bearers of God. 00:11:00.519 --> 00:11:04.000 We can't live, we can't climb onto His throne. 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.799 We can't allow other things to climb onto that throne. 00:11:08.799 --> 00:11:11.159 We and these things are not God. 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:16.000 The good gifts of God are not what we are to make ultimate. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:17.359 So it can be deceptively good. 00:11:17.359 --> 00:11:21.120 In other words, we can take the good things but we can make them ultimate. 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:22.120 And that is destructive. 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:26.840 We can also take the bad things and have great fun. 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:27.840 Okay? 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:28.840 Remember that. 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:33.039 We can have great fun doing all the wrong things. 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:40.759 You know, it's a pious nonsense to suggest that sin is easy to avoid because it's so 00:11:40.759 --> 00:11:42.639 overtly evil and wrong. 00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:48.159 It's a great verse in Hebrews 11, 25 which speaks about Moses making a choice and saying 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:55.240 he chose not to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a while because he could see something 00:11:55.240 --> 00:11:56.240 greater and better. 00:11:56.240 --> 00:12:01.399 Now, it doesn't say that he chose to avoid the misery of sin and the awfulness of sin 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:05.399 but the pleasures of sin because they were pleasurable for a while. 00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:08.240 There's great enjoyment and pleasure in sin. 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:11.480 It's temporary but it's real. 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:12.879 It's anticipated for many people. 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:15.480 That's why so many people do the lottery. 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:20.960 But it's real because we have appetites for wild living and for laughing at others and 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:27.200 at ourselves for excitement and danger, for lust, for the forbidden fruit, for coveting, 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:28.200 for temptation. 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:31.960 You know, temptation wouldn't be temptation if it wasn't attractive. 00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:36.680 It wasn't pleasurable if it didn't draw us to do the wrong thing. 00:12:36.680 --> 00:12:38.639 It's enticing. 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:42.279 It comes as an angel of light in all kinds of different ways. 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:46.799 That's why God speaks so much of the Christian life as a battle, a battle that we need to 00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:52.679 be alert about how we live for ourselves and how we live in consideration with others. 00:12:52.679 --> 00:13:00.919 But if you feed these sinful desires and appetites that we have, even legitimate appetites, if 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:07.199 we feed them in an illegitimate and selfish way, the deeper the entanglement becomes, 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:13.240 the greater the thrill we need, the more we need to spend to get the same level of excitement 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:16.640 and the more desperate we become because it's a spiral downwards. 00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:20.560 It's pleasurable but it's deathly. 00:13:20.560 --> 00:13:24.040 So sin, taking the bad and having fun. 00:13:24.040 --> 00:13:29.280 But sin, and I'm still on that theme of being deceptively good, sin can be taking the good 00:13:29.280 --> 00:13:30.280 and making it ultimate. 00:13:30.280 --> 00:13:36.879 It can be taking the bad and having fun, but sin can also look tremendously self-righteous. 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:42.080 Also you've got in here the story as well as the prodigal, you've got his brother, elder 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:45.480 brother. 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:49.080 And the elder brother here representing the religious Pharisees that muttered against 00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:52.159 God's grace, they didn't need it, they kept the law. 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:58.279 And there's a stunning effect of what Jesus is saying here is exposing the deception of 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:02.879 their own hearts and exposing law-breaking of the worst kind. 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:04.320 It was loveless. 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:09.840 They actually hated God and their neighbors in the guise of being good, moral, religious 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:11.040 people. 00:14:11.040 --> 00:14:18.560 Sin can look very self-righteous and can look very patting ourselves on the back. 00:14:18.560 --> 00:14:24.920 Whereas what God is saying here, the self-righteous moralism, this judgment of others, this outward 00:14:24.920 --> 00:14:31.920 moral behavior was masking a smoldering resentment to God. 00:14:31.919 --> 00:14:38.319 The service to Him was drudgery in the hope of some kind of earned reward. 00:14:38.319 --> 00:14:41.639 It was enslavement. 00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:48.719 That self-righteous kind of good outward living is feeling that you're missing out on the 00:14:48.719 --> 00:14:50.199 fun that everyone else is enjoying. 00:14:50.199 --> 00:14:51.679 There's no celebration. 00:14:51.679 --> 00:14:53.799 There's no joy of faith. 00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:56.959 You're dismissive of the experiences of others who've been saved by grace. 00:14:56.959 --> 00:14:57.959 What do they know? 00:14:57.960 --> 00:15:02.920 What should I get to do with anyone like that, the jokers who have earned nothing, who don't 00:15:02.920 --> 00:15:05.320 deserve forgiveness, a little bit what Rob was saying earlier. 00:15:05.320 --> 00:15:06.639 It's about earning. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:12.400 It's about religious behavior and outward acting. 00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:18.280 The wholeness of grace, the wholeness that grace offers and promises is despicable and 00:15:18.280 --> 00:15:24.440 an affront to the self-righteous who are deceptively good. 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:27.639 Deceptively good. 00:15:27.639 --> 00:15:33.039 But that is really the ugliest reality of all with selfishness. 00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:38.039 It comes as an angel of light to be self-righteously religious. 00:15:38.039 --> 00:15:45.480 It's taking the bad and having great fun, or at least perceived great fun, and it's taking 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:49.919 the good and making the good ultimate. 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:53.360 But the worst is that self-righteousness. 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:57.879 It's like someone wearing a dirty boiler suit to a wedding. 00:15:57.879 --> 00:16:02.759 It's not wearing the grace clothes of the people of God. 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:14.120 And it's an ugly affront to the gospel, and it's hugely destructive and tremendously broken. 00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:17.200 So sin is deceptively good. 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:20.200 It's an evidence of self-rule. 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:22.200 And it travels towards disintegration. 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:26.879 And that's really the theme this evening is disintegration. 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:32.360 We've looked at division and we've looked at this piece and we see that this story of 00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:37.440 the prodigal is a story that's leading towards the disintegration of a life without God. 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:40.040 That's what God is saying. 00:16:40.040 --> 00:16:45.440 You know, sin at best, when self is enthroned, when we live without God and we enthrone ourselves 00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:49.440 and we allow selfishness to rule our lives. 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:55.000 Sin and that pleasure is always temporary and it's ultimately unfulfilling. 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.560 There's always a morning after. 00:16:57.560 --> 00:17:02.360 There's always the reality of regret, the coming of night, other people moving on, the onset 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.279 of illness and old age. 00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:09.039 Old age is a great disintegrator, isn't it? 00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:12.039 Marvelous picture in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, 1-5. 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:17.680 If you have time, go and read that about the picture of the disintegration of the body 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:25.640 even in old age, which we know in Christ will be redeemed, but yet is a picture of ultimately 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:29.160 the judgment and reality of sin in humanity. 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:34.440 So the prodigal, his life as a picture of disintegration, isn't it? 00:17:34.440 --> 00:17:36.960 He spent all his money. 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:41.960 His resources that fueled the selfish hedonistic lifestyle had gone. 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:48.079 The laughter had ended for him and he'd used up all his get out of jail cards free, get 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:49.880 out of jail free cards even. 00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:51.759 He used them as well. 00:17:51.759 --> 00:17:55.319 He had two lots and they were all used up. 00:17:55.319 --> 00:18:02.640 So he had nothing left and above and added onto that there was a famine. 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:09.400 So the external circumstances militated against him just at the wrong time and he had no resources, 00:18:09.400 --> 00:18:15.680 he had no roots, he had no foundation personally or morally or spiritually to deal with this 00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:19.400 adverse circumstance and situation. 00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:25.320 And worse than that, there was nobody left around him. 00:18:25.320 --> 00:18:27.360 Nobody came to his aid. 00:18:27.360 --> 00:18:34.000 The prostitutes and the revelers were long gone and he had only been using them anyway. 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:40.519 And in this famine, it was each to their own, no one had time for this washed out loser who 00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:43.480 had just lived for the next party. 00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:50.440 We have a picture of a shell of a man drained of all meaningful life, a shadow. 00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:56.119 And he denied all that would have built his character and made him whole from the inside 00:18:56.119 --> 00:18:57.119 out. 00:18:57.119 --> 00:18:58.279 It's a picture of him imploding. 00:18:58.279 --> 00:19:05.399 This is a story of him imploding, disintegrating in a pig's trough. 00:19:05.399 --> 00:19:08.399 That's the picture of sin and selfishness we have here. 00:19:08.399 --> 00:19:13.960 And really God has said that's what sin does sooner or later. 00:19:13.960 --> 00:19:20.519 If you don't see your need for rescue, if you think sin is just a bit of a joke, or 00:19:20.519 --> 00:19:26.119 if you feel that you're good enough, that you're religious and moral and upright, you've 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:31.079 missed the whole point of the gospel. 00:19:31.079 --> 00:19:35.159 And you're not hearing what the Holy God is saying. 00:19:35.159 --> 00:19:40.639 And the reason I'm focusing on this is because the more we understand this, the more we will 00:19:40.639 --> 00:19:48.519 soar to great heights of grace and understanding. 00:19:48.519 --> 00:19:55.519 You can't understand grace and the love of God without recognizing the rescue that he 00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:01.440 has worked on our behalf. 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:08.359 Sin is a powerful, malevolent disease that destroys people, that brings disintegration 00:20:08.359 --> 00:20:12.200 from the inside out and ultimately from the outside in. 00:20:12.200 --> 00:20:18.680 It takes away body and soul from the living God and from life itself. 00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:21.240 It disintegrates. 00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:23.480 It disintegrates. 00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:25.400 That's what it does. 00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:28.320 That's its work. 00:20:28.320 --> 00:20:31.720 But the gospel brings us to our senses. 00:20:31.720 --> 00:20:36.080 I'm not going to spend any time on this, but I want to leave you with an image, two images 00:20:36.080 --> 00:20:37.080 actually. 00:20:37.080 --> 00:20:42.519 I just want to finish by asking you to visualize two things about God that matter more than 00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:47.360 anything in this picture, this great story of the prodigal son. 00:20:47.360 --> 00:20:50.640 Open our eyes spiritually and see two things. 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:54.720 In fact, three things. 00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:57.160 See the open arms of the Father. 00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:02.279 That's the great picture of this story in verse 20. 00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:03.279 Great picture. 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:05.680 And he arose and came to his father when he was still a long way off. 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:11.039 His father saw him and felt compassion, ran and embraced him and kissed him. 00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:16.240 And they had a celebration together. 00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:23.440 This father running to the disintegrated son with the open arms of love and compassion to 00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:32.960 him, still joy and celebration into their son's life, a right good party. 00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:35.039 Is that how you envisage your God? 00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:43.240 A God with open arms wanting to take us back and make us whole. 00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:44.600 Give us wholeness. 00:21:44.600 --> 00:21:46.200 Give us shalom. 00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:48.960 Give us his peace and his healing. 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:51.680 That's the picture of the gospel. 00:21:51.680 --> 00:22:00.320 And it is that picture because of the open arms of the Son nailed to the cross. 00:22:00.320 --> 00:22:05.279 That puts sin, does it not, into perspective. 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:11.440 The destruction in inverted commas, and that you watch what I say, but the destruction 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:17.160 of the life of God the Son on the cross willingly and freely. 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:26.720 The justice that is met and the grace that is revealed in his amazing sacrifice and answer 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:27.720 to our sins. 00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:35.279 The glory of the solution, the seriousness of it taking as Trinitarian God to be nailed 00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:40.000 in a cross outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:45.759 The open arms of the Father, the open arms of the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit 00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:53.039 from that as we come to Him by faith, transforming us with His peace and working in us towards 00:22:53.039 --> 00:22:55.640 wholeness again. 00:22:55.640 --> 00:23:02.279 Stilling within us a grace and a love for God and the ability to overcome the ongoing 00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:11.519 battle that you and I every day, you need and I need to admit it against selfishness. 00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:17.799 That puts God in the throne and enjoys the true freedom of loving Him and loving one 00:23:17.799 --> 00:23:20.519 another before anything else. 00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:24.599 That's the redemption of our self-identity. 00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:26.680 That's where we find wholeness. 00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:30.720 It's not enthroning ourselves and looking after number one. 00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:35.559 It's worshiping the living God and serving one another. 00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:44.559 So the gospel is the great answer of the Trinitarian God to selfishness and to the disintegration 00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:51.399 of sinful selfishness and the disintegration that it brings, the misery that it brings 00:23:51.399 --> 00:23:52.399 into our lives. 00:23:52.399 --> 00:23:58.079 It took God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit working together to bring 00:23:58.079 --> 00:24:00.119 us that freedom. 00:24:00.119 --> 00:24:08.479 Are we going to abuse that by not praying, by not thinking we need Him, by just sort 00:24:08.479 --> 00:24:15.039 of saying, well, we can cope on our own, by thinking we've got sin licked? 00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:17.159 It simply isn't the case. 00:24:17.159 --> 00:24:24.959 We have that great need on a day-to-day basis to allow His transforming power to help us 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:33.200 to see the open arms of the Son and the open arms of the Father in celebratory joy. 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:35.319 And that should mark our Christian lives. 00:24:35.319 --> 00:24:41.840 And I hope that it does increasingly as we think of and see God in this great picture 00:24:41.840 --> 00:24:46.319 that Jesus gives for us of the gospel in the prodigal Son. 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:52.759 We were lost and divided and at dis-peace and disintegrating and ultimately, as you'll 00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:55.240 see next week, dying. 00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:57.200 But Christ brings life. 00:24:57.200 --> 00:24:59.640 So let's pray and thank Him for that. 00:24:59.640 --> 00:25:05.680 Father God, we ask and pray that You would teach us to understand You better and understand 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:10.920 what You say better, that we would not be naive, that we would not be simplistic, that 00:25:10.920 --> 00:25:18.720 we would not be stupid and narrow-minded in our thinking about sin as if simply it is 00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:24.400 that overt, dark evil that is obvious to all. 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:35.120 We know that its ultimate horror is in self-righteousness or in taking Your good things and making 00:25:35.120 --> 00:25:40.279 them ultimate, as well as then also doing the things You hate. 00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:45.960 But the lovelessness, the lovelessness for others and the lovelessness for You is of 00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:51.720 course at the core of our commandment breaking. 00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:57.279 So Lord, help us to see that these things are not good, that they are not healthy, that 00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:00.799 they are death indeed. 00:26:00.799 --> 00:26:12.840 And help us to run to You to every day recognize the battle we face with remaining sinful selfishness 00:26:12.839 --> 00:26:17.799 that militates against Your glorious freedom and grace. 00:26:17.799 --> 00:26:23.639 Help us to buy Your power, make the right choices with the Holy Spirit guiding us to 00:26:23.639 --> 00:26:26.839 do what is right, not what is wrong, good, not what is evil. 00:26:26.839 --> 00:26:33.439 As we saw this morning, that great summary help us to be those who are wise when it comes 00:26:33.439 --> 00:26:37.599 to good and innocent when it comes to evil. 00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:42.679 Help us, we pray Lord, forgive us when we make a hash of things and when we are attracted 00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:50.240 to all the wrong things and when we feed wrong appetites and are enslaved by them. 00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:57.080 Lord give us new freedom and new grace and new power to live for You and for You alone. 00:26:57.079 --> 00:27:14.119 In Jesus' name, amen.