“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.” (Luke 15:11-13).
There is so much pain packed into these verses. The younger son was anxious and restless. I’m sure his modern day diagnosis would have been depression. He felt he was being deprived of joy and satisfaction. He felt he deserved so much more in life. He felt life at home was just too small, too slow paced, and too suffocating. He needed a change of scenery, now. With each passing day the young man’s anger and dissatisfaction only grew, until one day he exploded, and demanded his father give him “his share” of “his inheritance.”
Essentially the son was saying, “Dad, you’re as good as dead to me. Why make me wait for the inevitable. Just give me my money now, and turn me loose. I need (I deserve) happiness. I’ll be better without you.”
The father doesn’t appear to hesitate. He divides his property between his two boys, and gives the younger son everything the younger son thinks he needs to find happiness. The son gathers up a head of steam, sets off for a distant country, and squanders everything he has, including his own flesh and blood, in wild living.
Friends, this scenario plays itself out every day in a million different ways. Sometimes it’s the younger son who leaves. Sometimes it’s the older child. Sometimes it’s a daughter. Sometimes it’s the father, a husband. Sometimes it’s the mother, a wife.
Refreshment is a human problem that touches people of all ages, genders, and walks of life. We get to feeling so dead, and dry, and dissatisfied inside we’re ready to explode. The human experience is one of desperation. And that desperation becomes so intense, were willing to gamble everything on the hope that greater joy can be found somewhere out there (in a distant land) than right here (at home with the Father).
The Father’s dilemma is what do you do with a restless soul? The son is angry because he wants, and feels he deserves more. The father is angry because he doesn’t anything more to give! Let me ask. Who is entitled to be angrier here? The son or the father? The Bible doesn’t actually say the father was angry. Maybe he was sad. Maybe he was exhausted. The father was surely filled with grief. His best wasn’t enough in the eyes of the son. And now he was losing even his son…
If you were in the father’s shoes what would you have done? You might question the father’s decision to divide the estate. But you would never fault the father if in fact he was angry. If the father were angry, we’d never doubt that underneath that anger lay the deepest imaginable reservoir of love. Implicitly we understand the father was doing something that he hoped would ultimately bring about the redemption of his wayward child. Nobody doubts that the father is righteous, fair, and good.
I say all of this, because were often suspicious of the Father’s motives. We like to play the Old Testament :: New Testament card… that the God of the New Testament is so loving and redemptive kind and the God of the Old Testament is vengeful and angry. No even in anger, even in wrath, God’s motive is always love. Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son so that we would understand the Father’s motive.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world he sent his one and only Son…” Love has always been God’s motive. The constant refrain in the Old Testament is Psalm 145:8, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Ezekiel 18:23 God says, “Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign LORD. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live.” Anything we might conclude about God’s anger, or God’s wrath has to be understood in the context of God’s love.
In Romans 1:18 Paul writes, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” So let me ask, how does God “reveal” or “express” his anger? There are times in Scripture that God’s judgement appears immediate and complete. But in reality God’s judgement is patient, slow, and long suffering.
Peter makes this observation in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
I would encourage you to look at God through the lens of story of Prodigal Son. The father patiently turns the inheritance over to the son. The father patiently turns the son loose to live in a distant country. He doesn’t fight with the son, argue with the son, try to control and manipulate the son… instead he releases his Son. Whatever you might imagine about God, the reality is that in whatever wrath or anger he possesses, in love, with redemptive intent, God releases us to our sin. In Romans 1 Paul gives us a number of illustrations of this.
Sometimes in love God releases us to our “idols.”
Romans 1:20-23, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”
We don’t use the word “idols” that much… except maybe the American Idol. But look no further than your Thesaurus. An Idol is whoever is your hero, your savior. Your idol is what you pinup on your wall. It’s your obsession, whoever or whatever you Photoshop and over-idealize. Your idol is you’re God-Substitute. It’s whatever you believe will make you happier than possessing the Father himself. The list is long.
When I was younger, my life revolved around things my dad gave me. He gave me a toy train. He gave me a tool, or maybe a pen he hand-turned on his wood lathe. As a young person, I was happy at the thought that some physical thing dad gave me might make me happy. But as I got older, I realized that the deeper kind of happiness was not have some “thing.” Happiness was just having my father.
This past year my brother and I inherited all my dad’s tools and his stuff. But we were sitting there in his garage, in the midst of it all, just longing to hear him laugh one more time. If we’re foolish to think some idol, some created thing, will satisfy us as much as being with the Father we’re only fooling ourselves. In love, God turns us over to our idols and our foolishness so that we will learn this lesson before it’s too late. God says, “here, take your obsession…” And then he waits for us to return from the distant country. He waits till we long for his presence so much our hearts/bones ache! And he welcomes us back in his grace.
Sometimes in love God releases us to our “sinful desires.”
In Romans 1:24-25 Paul writes, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” I don’t know that these verses need a lot of commentary, do you?
James 1:14 says, “But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires, he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.” What do you do when a person has rejected God’s law? When they have rejected God’s prophets? When they have rejected God’s son Jesus Christ? What do you do when a desire grows so powerful in a person’s life, they’re spiritually paralyzed until they act on their all-consuming desire?
Mike Roux told me a story this past week, about his love for Whipped Cream. As a youngster he would sneak down to the fridge, and snort whipped cream up his nose. His dad scolded and rebuked him, but the temptation was too great. Finally, one day his dad sat him down at the kitchen table and made him eat so much whipped cream he became sick and violently started vomiting whip cream everywhere. He got so sick that day he hasn’t eaten whip cream since! Sometimes in love God lets us have the whole bowl of whip cream so that we wake up and come to our senses.
The Father let the younger son have his full inheritance, he let him indulge in a bowl full of sin, so he’d serve it no longer.
Sometimes in love God releases us to our “shameful lusts.”
In Romans 1:26-27 Paul writes, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Let me explain “shameful lusts.” Shameful lust is when you are so empty and hollow, you would let your desires, your inner brokenness, swallow up the life of another person. It’s that you would make that person a slave of your own evil desires. In these verses the Bible is describing same-sex attraction. But the application of this verse goes far beyond same-sex relationships. In this world, you have men and women abandoning what is safe, healthy, and natural for acts that are dangerous, destructive, and unnatural. Shameful lust is when you persist in something despite the severe physical danger and consequences that obsession brings to you and others.
Look what verse 27 says… “people received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” With lust there is control and manipulation and monopolization. That other person becomes a means of gratification, even to the demise or yourself and others.
Have you ever tried to dissuade a person from shameful lusts? It’s nearly impossible. When a person is engaged in such sin, they whitewash their sin, they over idealize their attraction and their desires. In the story of the Prodigal Son, the son had to go and indulge himself in his wild, riotous, shameful lifestyle before he come to his senses.
Luke 15:15-16 describes how the son, “set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.”
It’s sad for sure. But the son had to become a slave of other human beings for him to realize true freedom could be found with the father. In love, God will allow you to be enslaved to your own lusts, or to another lusts, so he can ultimately get you back.
Sometimes in love, God turns us over to a “depraved mind.”
In Romans 1:28-31 Paul writes, “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”
Think of depraved as being upside-down. When you’re depraved your thinking becomes upside-down… evil is good and good is evil.
I’ve been preaching for almost 25 years. In that short time, so many things have become normalized. People have radically permissive ideas about the grounds for divorce, fornication (couples living together outside marriage), adultery, pornography use, gambling, marijuana use, same-sex attraction, abortion. The depraved mind says, “If you think it’s going to make you happy, do it! And don’t just do it, encourages others to do it, teach kids to disobey their parents, teach the next generation to depart from the antiquated morality of their family.”
Paul mentions “malice.” Malice is when you encourage someone to do evil while standing to benefit nothing personally. This is what we see in our world. People encouraging people to do evil for the sake of evil. If you are a loving God, what do you do with a depraved mind? God turns us over to the bankruptcy of our own thinking so that we come to our senses sooner than later.
Romans 1:32, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
If death itself doesn’t wake us up, what will?
Luke 15. “When he came to his senses, [the son] said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. 21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
Let me tell you something that God's love is never willing to do. In no matter what desire of your heart he turns you over to, he will never abandon you. The gospel (good news) isn’t that God turns you over to sin. The gospel isn’t that God’s anger, or wrath is being revealed.
The gospel is actually Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. . . For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
The gospel is that if you’ll believe, and humble yourself, God will take you back! God will restore you to himself, and all that’s been lost. The gospel is that God has the power, the desire, to bring you from death to life. The gospel is that in the Father, there is everlasting refreshment. He has a robe of righteousness to drape over your shoulder. He has a ring to reaffirm your sonship. He has fattened calf to fill your soul like it’s never been filled before. God welcomes you to a feast, to refresh your soul.