- Sermon Notes
- Scripture
Luke 15:11-32
November 3, 2024
1 Thessalonians 3:4, For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know.
I discovered that God allows trials and suffering to enter His children’s lives. Now the question is, why? Why does God let His children suffer?
So, if you’ve been struggling and you’ve been suffering and you’ve got pain in your life, you came to the right place because we’re going to talk about it from the word of God.
Luke 15:11-32
I. God Pursues You with His Love & Compassion
All the tax collectors and the sinners; prostitutes, criminals, thieves, etc were coming near Jesus to listen to Him so the Rabbis began to grumble, saying this fellow welcomes sinners and even eats with them and when Jesus heard the Rabbis grumbling, He decided to tell them a story.
We know that story as the parable of the prodigal son. Prodigal means wasteful. The story of the wasteful son. There were two brothers. The younger brother took his inheritance and left home, wasted it all in wild living. Then he ends up broke and alone and living in a pig pen and the Bible says at that point he comes to his senses, he repents and he decides to head home to his father.
A. God is seeking & pursuing you
He was still a long way off and his father saw him and had compassion on him and ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and the story goes on to say that the father restored him to his full rights as a son and even threw a party to celebrate the fact that his son had returned.
• Now so far it’s easy for us to identify the actors in this parable. The prodigal son represents all the tax collectors and sinners who were repenting and flocking to Jesus.
• The father represents God. He provides forgiveness to all of these folks; tax collectors, sinners and was thrilled to have them back.
Now honestly Jesus could have ended his story right there and it would have been a great story with great spiritual truth about how God receives repenting sinners.
Revelation 3:20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
If you’re here today and you’re away from the Lord, let me say that if you will make 180° turn like the prodigal son did and you will come back to God like he did, you will receive from God the very same kind of reception. He will greet you with open arms! He will take you into His arms, He will embrace you, He will restore you, He will throw a party for you with the angels in heaven rejoicing that you have come back.
B. The heavens rejoice when one sinner repents
You don’t need to clean yourself up. This prodigal son didn’t. You don’t need to fix yourself up. The prodigal son didn’t. You don’t need to. In the some way, pick yourself up. The prodigal son need’s to come back to God in repentance.
Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
What precipitated Jesus’s story? It was those hard-hearted Rabbis who felt no compassion, no pity, no joy and no mercy for these returning sinners. So enter character #3 in the story, namely the prodigal sons older brother.
Review v25-30 –
He refused to go into the house, to go in and celebrate the return of his younger brother, the one who squandered so much of the family fortune, the one who had left him behind to do all the work, the one who had tarnished the name of the family all over the countryside. Not on your life.
So his father came out. My heart breaks when I read those words. I feel for that father who’s coming out now and trying to beg the older brother to have mercy, to have compassion, to have pity on his younger brother. To show forgiveness and mercy.
The brother, all these years says I’ve been slaving for you yet you never gave me even so much as a goat so I could celebrate with my friends, but when this son of yours – notice not “my brother,” when this son of yours who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes comes home you kill a fattened calf for him.
II. Prodigal Sons Must Come Home
I want you to notice here the key point in the story; that the older brother looked great on the outside, he was responsible, he was obedient, he was hard working, he was dependable, but on the inside something was terribly missing.
This prodigal son sees his inheritance gone, beaten up by sin. He’s just limped home on his very last leg and was the older brother glad to see him, no. Was he touched at all by his little brother’s pain, no. Did he have any pity for this wounded human being? Not once. His heart was as cold as a slab of granite.
That’s the salient point of the whole story and so if the prodigal son represented all the tax collectors and sinners who were repenting and flocking to Jesus and if the father represents our merciful and forgiving God, then who does the older brother represent?
• Full of self-righteousness standing there before Jesus, but utterly lacking in compassion. v31, then, the father said to the older brother, my son you are always with me and all that is mine is yours, but we had to celebrate and rejoice. It was appropriate for us to throw a party because your brother was dead in sin and now he has come back to life. He was lost and now he is found. Just like these tax collectors and sinners and here Jesus abruptly ends the story…stops.
What happened to the older brother? Did he not come in? Why didn’t Jesus tell him? Well the reason Jesus didn’t finish the story is the ending of the story was up to those Rabbis who were standing there and listening. Would they come into the party or not. Would they soften their hard hearts and have some compassion and pity for these sinners or not?
A. God teachers us life changing lessons through our suffering
Jesus was standing there like the father in the story pleading with them as the father, but how sad is it that most of these Rabbis never change their hearts and never came into the party.
Honestly, why does God let Christians suffer? I’ll help you with that. Remember, we said a few moments ago that the older brother looked great on the outside, but on the inside something was terribly missing. What exactly was missing? It was the same thing that was missing and standing right there in front of Jesus.
We can sum it up in one word. The word is compassion. Compassion, the dictionary says, is the ability to identify with people in need or in pain and react in a caring way. I’m reminded of what Jesus said to Philip in
John 14:9 “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Want to see the heart of God then all we have to do is look at how Jesus responded to every situation He ever went into and we will see the heart of God on display. The heart of God is a heart of intense compassion.
Illustration – Chaplaincy
Look at Matthew 9 when Jesus saw the crowds. He had compassion for them because they were helpless like sheep without a shepherd. When Jesus went ashore in Matthew 14, he saw a great crowd and had what… compassion for them. Matthew 20, compassion.
James 5:11, We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.
This is the heart of God, but the Bible goes farther than that. The Bible not only tells us that God is compassion, but we are to be people of compassion.
Colossians 3:12, So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;
Ephesians 4:32, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. <NIV>
1 Peter 3:8, Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; <NKJV>
B. Compassion for others is a godly trait
To sum up, Peter says have compassion. This is why Mother Teresa spent her life working with poor children, compassion. This is why Corrie ten-Boom hid Jewish people from the Nazis in Holland during World War II, compassion. This is why Wilbur Wilberforce fought his whole life and succeeded in ending slavery throughout all the British Empire, compassion. This is why Joni Eareckson Tada sends help and encouragement to people with disabilities all over the world, compassion.
God wants you and me to have compassion. And you may ask, what does any of this have to do with why God provides compassion to those who suffer? I can answer those questions with one verse, here in 2 Corinthians 1:3 –
2 Corinthians 1:3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, <NIV>
God comforts us in our troubles or affliction, in our suffering, in our pain, so that we may watch and learn how to comfort others in their afflictions?
Now what this verse is telling us is that compassion is a learned skill. So that we may learn how to comfort others in their afflictions. It is a learned skill, but how does God teach it to us? He teaches it to us in the midst of our afflictions, suffering, pain.
It’s suffering that teaches us how to connect with people in pain. It’s suffering that tenderizes our hearts to the weak and the needy and the downcast and the helpless, to the poor and the powerless and the orphan and the widow and the immigrant and the homeless. Suffering tenderizes our heart for those folks and other people in pain more than anything else.
Nobody ever learned compassion from success. We learn it in the furnace of suffering.
We have all suffered in different ways and we don’t get to choose when and how. Loss of work, reliance on others financially, unplanned injuries, unexpected health challenges, wayward children, painful loss of life in the family, unjust and hurtful accusations, broken relationships, abandoned Christian friends. What would your personal list be?
Along the way, each of these and others has given me some measure of suffering. Each of these has prepared me or equipped me for ministering to others with similar pain, life experience or loss. Looking back over time, each of these gave God a path to my heart to comfort and teach me, to call me to a greater purpose than the world’s measure. Each of these allowed God to abundantly bless me when I trusted Him to, what I call, put salve on my open wounds.
We each have similar stories because everyone here has experienced suffering in some way. Some of you haven’t allowed God to put salve on your open wounds, some of you may even blame God for your suffering. Some of you may not know Him personally as Lord and Savior so my words make no sense to you.
C. God’s calling you home today
May I say to you if you’re here today and if you’re going through a time of suffering in your life, God’s is in the midst of it. I’m here to tell you don’t you dare accept a cheap and superficial explanation for why you’re suffering. Let me tell you why you’re suffering, you’re suffering because God is not the genie in the lamp. You’re suffering because God’s greatest goal in your life is trying to take you as His child and build you into a deep man of God, a deep woman of God, who knows how to show true godly Christlike compassion to other people and love them. That’s why you’re suffering.
There are some levels of Christian maturity and growth that you and I cannot get to, except through the doorway of suffering. I’m sorry to tell you that, but it’s just true. Success never made anybody compassionate or humble.
I do have some good news for you and you say, well praise God, it’s about time. It’s a promise God makes you and me. It’s a promise I’ve held on to along the way.
Isaiah 41:10, ‘Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
What’s He say; do not Fear.
Do you know how many times God says that to his children; 150 times. Don’t you love it when he starts off saying fear not, fear not for I am with you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
God says if I have to I’ll pick you up and carry you, if I have to, but you are going to make it because I’ve already inspected what’s in your life and I know you can do it and my grace will be sufficient. It has always been sufficient and it will be sufficient for you. I’ve got your hand, I’m upholding you, I’ve got you and you’re going to make it, you’re going to be a better person for it, you’re going to be a better husband, a better wife, a better friend. You’re going to be a better father, a better mother, you’re going to be a better coworker, you’re just going to be better.
Don’t worry, I’ve got this. Fear not.
Psalm 63:3-5, Your lovingkindness is better than life…So I will bless You as long as I live…My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.
Luke 15:11-32 NASB
11 And He said, “A man had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’ So he divided his wealth between them. 13 And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. 14 Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. 17 But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’ 20 So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; 23 and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.
25 “Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him. 29 But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; 30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you [j]have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”
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