FAMILY IT! — Wednesday Family Devotional — “99+1”

“The Parable of the Lost Son” is one of my favorite Bible stories.  There was no Children’s Church in the congregations where I grew up, so every Sunday I sat with my parents in the sanctuary for worship.  I liked the hymns and was able to participate in the prayers, but the sermons were just over my head.  So when the pastor stepped into the pulpit, I would reach for the pew Bible and start reading my favorite stories.  Every. Sunday.  So I got to know this parable quite well.

Grab your family Bible and read through this wonderful story again.  You’ll find it in Luke 15:11-31.

It’s a great story, right?  You can almost see the big screen version, complete with dramatic music as the father runs toward his lost-now-found son.  It almost brings a  tear to your eye.  After all, everyone loves a reunion story.

But I have a confession to make.

When I was ten, sitting in those wooden pews reading this story…I agreed with the older son.  Each time I got to verse 25, my head would start to nod slightly and my chin would set in indignation as I read big brother’s complaints.  It wasn’t fair.  This kid took half of his father’s property and wasted it.  It was gone.  And now, after he’s fallen on his face and come crawling back…he gets a party???  Unbelievable!  And then you add insult to injury when you realize that his faithful first-born, the one who stayed and worked and served his father, was never once celebrated.  Not even a little.

I was so certain this brother was right, and it confused and frustrated me when I read what the father said.  I mean, it was obvious that Jesus was saying the father made the right choice, that the older brother was wrong in his thinking.  But why?  What in the world makes this story fair?

Well, I’ve got a few more decades on me now, and I’ve come to realize something.  It’s not fair.  Not one thing about this story is fair.  

It’s not fair that the younger son took his inheritance early.  

It’s not fair that he spent it on wild parties.

It’s not fair that a famine hit right in the middle of everything.

It’s not fair that the father took the son in and dressed him like an heir to the empire.

It’s not fair that he got a huge party thrown in his honor.

None of it’s fair—and I’m so glad for that!  My young, tween heart was so caught up in the rules of the world, focusing only on what was just…kind of like the older brother.  I was certain that people who broke the rules and made bad life choices deserved to be punished.  And they do.  But I forgot that I was a rule-breaker, too.  True, I had been attending church since before I could walk.  But that didn’t make me perfect.  It didn’t mean I was righteous.  It only meant I was eligible for the Perfect Attendance Award in Sunday school.  I didn’t deserve that party any more than you younger son did.  

Thankfully, though, God is both just AND gracious.  He knows that every sinner deserves a death sentence, but he also loves those sinners—his children—with an undeniable passion.  So he did the most unfair thing of all:  he sent Jesus.

It’s not fair that Jesus had to leave heaven.

It’s not fair He had to suffer through the struggles of life just to show us how to live in relationship with the Father.

It’s not fair He was arrested and beaten.

It’s not fair He suffered a horrible death on the cross.

It’s not fair He carried the burden of all our sins: your sins, my sins, every sin.

It’s not fair He had to endure hell.

And it’s not fair that since He was able to beat death, we no longer have to be punished.

It’s not fair at all.  But I’m so glad it’s the way it is!!!

Sometimes we can be tempted to cop an “older brother” attitude.  We look at the people around us who are struggling with big sins, making majorly unholy life choices, and we think, “They don’t deserve God’s grace!  They deserve to be punished.”  It’s true.  They don’t.  But we need to remember…neither do we.  

Let’s work to shake of that older brother attitude and try to be like the father, the Father, whose love embraces everyone willing to come back to him! 

Lawrence’s Momma Showed Much Grace

Hi PoC,

I love ya!

So, I was talking to a new friend of mine named Lawrence.  He’s a Christian brother who went through years and years of drug and alcohol abuse and family heartache.  He was telling me a story about his momma, how she used to wait up for him to come home from his binges.  It would be 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning, or worse, every day.  He would stumble up to the locked screen door and would call his mom.  He said there was always an agonizing pause – the time it took her to walk from the living room to the door – when he would begin to panic, thinking, “What if she won’t let me in the house?”  Every night, she would say the same thing, “Lawrence, I’m going to show you the same grace God showed me.  I’m going to let you in the house.  Tomorrow I’ll be praying for you to see if God wants me to keep showing you grace.”  He finished by saying, “She let me in every night.  Never shut me out.  I will never forget that.”

It reminded me about a time when I was a college sophomore.  I had been less than “a good boy” the weekend before and was called on the carpet by one of the college deans.  I got a note in my mail box there on campus and quickly “got the story straight” with a few of my friends and then marched over to the dean’s office.  That same panic Lawrence experienced welled up in my chest as I wondered what the outcome would be.  It was a waiting time.  Agonizing.  It was a waiting time with only two options:  rest or confess.  Well, it wasn’t a long meeting or a long confession, and it ended with much grace.  Evidently my dean and Lawrence’s momma shared the same Spirit.

Grace is something that we do not deserve.  It’s a gift.  There’s nothing YOU have to do.  There’s nothing you HAVE to do.  There’s nothing you have to DO.  And, that’s the awkward-making feature of grace.  We can’t manipulate it or mold it to fit us or anticipate it, predict it or demand it.  So many of us are so sure of our scheming, sinful or natural, that “the waiting” is exhausting and it brings us to a point of decision where we can either confess sin as sin to our Redeemer, and/or simply choose to rest in His providential care for us as His children.  Sometimes it seems to take forever for Jesus to walk from the living room to the door.  Oh, the waiting.

PoC, I can’t wait . . . can’t wait . . . can’t flippin’ wait to see you all this coming Sunday. We’re going to rejoin Joseph’s brothers as they make the trip back to Egypt with their brother Benjamin to see how Joseph, the Prime Minister, will treat them.  They will be greeted at his house by his chief steward, served dinner, and then, they will have . . . to wait . . . for judgment . . . or grace.  Joseph seems to be taking forever to get from His chambers to the dinner table.  What could be taking so long?  What will happen next?

Hey, it’s not too late to invite some friends to join you Sunday, especially those who are waiting to confess to Jesus or rest in Jesus.  Get on that, PoC.  I’ll be praying and can’t wait to see you.

Let’s Keep Talking About Jesus,

Pastor Todd