You Thought God Was Keeping Score
How can I know that what I believe about God is true?
You can’t - unless God has revealed himself to us.
It is not merely the unbeliever that creates a God to his liking; religious people are equally guilty.
Had God not chosen to reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, we would not really know what God is like.
The story of the prodigal son is in two acts:
Acts 1: The lost younger brother.
Act 2: The lost older brother.
The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
-Luke 15:12
Primogeniture: the right of the firstborn son to receive a double share of the inheritance.
To ask for the inheritance while the father is still alive is to wish him dead.
Kezazah (kazaza): an ancient Jewish “cutting off” ceremony where a disgraced person could be publicly rejected—often symbolized by the community breaking a clay pot at their feet to show they were severed from the people.
The father is experiencing the worst thing a human being could endure: rejected love.
The son’s plan to return:
Step one: Confess to his father
Step two: Tell his father that he has sinned and is no longer worthy to be called his son.
Step three: Ask his father to make him one of his hired men.
The father’s response:
- Get the best robe (his robe), his ring, his shoes.
- Kill the fatted calf!
The father is saying: “I am not going to wait for my son to clean up. Cover my son’s nakedness with my robe, my office and my honor, and prepare the feast!”
The older brother’s response:
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
-Luke 15:25-27
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
-Luke 15:28-30
The older brother is saying: “How dare you use our wealth like this! I have some right over your things - How dare you do this!”
The father's response to the older brother:
He responds with a very tender word, “My son."
What is Jesus trying to tell us?
Jesus clarifies the Fatherhood of God.
Jesus explains the attitude of sin.
Jesus illuminates the beauty of salvation.
1. Jesus Speaks of the Fatherhood of God.
Jesus emphasizes that God is Father.
2. Jesus Explains the Attitude of Sin.
Each son wanted the father’s things but not the father. Each one used the father to get what they really wanted. Both are lost!
These are the two basic ways that human beings attempt to make the world right, put themselves right, and connect to God.
- Moral conformity: I'm going to be good, I will work hard to be righteous.
- Self-discovery: I am going to decide what is right for me, I will be self-determined and self-sufficient.
Jesus says: you are both wrong!
It’s the humble who are in and the proud who are out. It’s the people who know they are not good or open minded and know they need grace that are in.
There are two ways to be your own savior and Lord just like there are two ways to get control of the Father’s stuff.
There are two ways to try to control God.
One: Taking all that the Father has given you and living any way you want.
Two: Being very religious, and doing good things.
There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.
-Flannery O’Connor
All your moral obedience and righteousness is to get God to give you what you really want.
If you think God owes you a good life because of all your religious activity—you are always going to have an undercurrent of anger because life is difficult in this world.
3. Jesus Illuminates True Salvation.
Christianity does not divide the world into “good” and “bad” people. Moral conformity and self-discovery do not go deep enough.
The default mode of every human heart is self-justification.
Jesus says we need three things:
First: we need the initiating love of the Father.
You are never going to seek Him unless first he comes after you.
Second: You need to learn how to repent for something else besides sins.
Christians repent of what they have done wrong—of course—but a Christian is a person who also has learned to repent for the reasons you did right.
Third: You need to be melted and moved by what it costs to bring you home.
The Pharisee obeys God to get things. The Christian obeys God to get God.
On the cross Jesus Christ was stripped naked so that we could be clothed!
Jesus had everything the Father had and yet he gives it up in order to bring us home.
Jesus did not come to make bad people good; He came to make dead people live.
If you think Christianity is about being good enough to earn the Father’s acceptance, you are sadly mistaken.
Christianity is about realizing what has been done for you that you might be unconditionally accepted; that you may fall in love with the Father and surrender your life to Him.
You can’t lose. Everything he has is yours!
Make a Decision