The Lost Son, Part 2b

Luke 15 is where we are, the parable of lost things. Giving us three pictures, the picture of the lost sheep, the lost silver coin, and the lost sons. A very important picture is the one we're discussing this evening. We began last week by looking at what is commonly called the prodigal son. And we told you that the Bible says that he is the dead son, the lost son or the younger son.

And the picture painted for us by our Lord Jesus Christ is a picture that helps us to understand the essence of true repentance. As we begin to see what happens in the life of this young man as he comes to realize where he is going is nowhere. And where he needs to go is back home to his father. And in this whole story, this earthly story, we have a heavenly meaning of what true repentance is. And when someone turns from their wicked ways to follow Jesus Christ as Lord. and Savior. Repentance is one of the foundational stones of Christianity.

Unfortunately, there are many churches today that don't even talk about repentance, but the Bible, over 60 times in the New Testament, speak about what it means to repent. And as I was thinking about that this week, I was just perusing through the New Testament, realizing that when Jesus Christ came on the scene in Mark 1, the very first words out of his mouth were these.

The time is fulfilled. The time is fulfilled. and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. The very first words out of the mouth of Christ at the inception of his ministry was to repent and believe the gospel.

When he trained his men to follow him and to serve him, he commissioned them, sent them out in a Mark chapter 6. It tells us in verse number 12, and they went out and preached that men should repent. Men need to turn from their sin to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go over to Luke chapter 24, you realize that when Christ commissioned the disciples before he ascended into heaven after his resurrection, he said this, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.

So when Christ began his ministry, he began with the message of repentance. When he sent his men out, they preached the gospel of repentance. And before he ascended into glory, he commissioned his men by telling them, make sure you go into all the world and preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins. When Peter preached his first sermon, Acts chapter 2, verse number 38, when the people said, what shall we do?

Peter said, repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. In his second sermon, Acts chapter 3, verse number 19, he said this, repent, therefore, and return that your sins may be wiped away in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

The Apostle Paul, as he would speak to the Ephesian elders before he left, said, these. words in verse number 21 of Acts 20, I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's no wonder that Paul said in Acts chapter 17, verse number 30, that God is commanding all men everywhere to repent. That's the essence of the gospel.

It's foundation to Christianity. Man needs to understand. where he is and where he is is not where God wants him to be. And so he needs to go where God calls him. To do that, there is repentance that takes place, a turning of his life. He has changed his mind about who he is, where he is, who God is, what God's called him to do, he makes an about face and he follows after Jesus Christ His Lord. It was Charles Spurgeon who said in his book, All of Grace, these words. He says, repentance is the inseparable companion of faith, all the while that we walk by faith and not by sight, the tear of repentance glitters in the eye of faith.

That is not true repentance which does not come of faith in Jesus, and that is not true faith in Jesus, which is not tinctured with repentance. Faith and repentance, like Siamese twins are virtually joined together. Faith and repentance are but two spokes in the same wheel, two handles of the same plow. Repentance a heart broken for sin and from sin, and it may equally well be spoken of as turning and returning. It is a change of mind of the most thorough and radical sort, and it is attended with sorrow for the past and of absolve of amendment in the future.

Repentance of sin and faith in divine pardon are the warp and woof of the fabric of real conversion. That's true. People who don't repent of their sins are not truly converted. The Bible says so much about repentance.

A. W. Tozer said these words, he goes, I think there is little doubt that the teaching of salvation without repentance has lowered the moral standards of the church and proclaimed a multitude of deceived religious professors who erroneously believe themselves to be saved when in fact they are still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. That's true. A lot of people don't preach about repentance. Unfortunately, those who hear a erroneous gospel and believe what they hear without turning from their sin are still entrenched in their sin.

It's important for us to understand what the Bible says about repentance. And Christ in this parable in Luke chapter 15 helps us to come to grips with what happens in this young man's life to understand the true nature and essence of repentance. Spurgeon turn or burn. I like that. He said this, when a man repents with that grace of repentance, which God the Spirit works in him, he repents not of the punishment, which is to follow the deed, but of the deed itself. And he feels that if there were no pit digged for the wicked, if there were no ever-nawing worm and no fire unquenchable, he would still hate sin.

It is such repentance as this, which every one of you must have or else you will be lost. It must be a hatred of sin. Do not suppose that because when you come to die you will be afraid of eternal torment, therefore that will be repentance. Every thief is afraid of the prison, but he will steal tomorrow if you set him free. Most men have committed murder, tremble at the seats of the gallotries. But they would do the deed again, could they live? It is not the hatred of the punishment that is repentance.

It is the hatred of the deed itself. Do you feel that you have such a repentance as this? If not, these thundering words must be preached to you again. If he turn not, he will wet his sword. But one more hint is here. When a man is possessed of true and evangelical repentance, I mean the gospel repentance, which saves a soul, he not only hates sin for its own sake, but loathes it so extremely and utterly that he feels no repentance of his own can avail to wash it out. And he acknowledges that it is only by an act of sovereign grace that his sins can be washed away.

A man may renounce every outward sin and yet not really repent. True repentance is a turning of the heart as well as of the life. It is the giving up of the whole soul to God to be his forever and ever. It is the renunciation of the sins of the heart as well as the crimes of the life. That's repentance. And you know what? There's a lot of people today who think they're Christians, but have never truly repented of their sins. That's why this whole picture in this parable is important for us. It's important for us because, you know, repentance is not something you do once and then you never repent again.

As Martin Luther said when he posted his 95 thesis on the Wittenberg door in Germany, the very first one read, when our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ called us to repentance, he meant all of the saved to repent.

He didn't just mean that when you repent of your sins, that it's over. No, no, no. There's a continual repentance that happens in our lives, right, that characterizes the Christian. He mourns over his sin. He realizes that he's violated not only the law of God, but the person of God himself. He sinned against God. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ in his letter to the churches in the book of Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 exhorts five of those seven churches to repent of their sins, to turn from where they are, to get right with him.

It's so important for us to grasp. And so when you understand true repentance, when you read Luke 15, you begin to understand this is what's supposed to happen in my life on a daily basis, not just when I give my life to Christ, but is characteristic of everything that happens in my life as I realize sin and what my response to my God is in light of that. So important. Luke 15, we began looking at the younger son. There are three main characters here, the younger son, the father, the older son. We'll finish with the younger son tonight.

We'll go on to the father, and then the older son the week after that. And help you understand what Christ is trying to help us see as he gives an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, this picture of what's commonly called the prodigal son, this wayward boy. His father lets him go. And we helped you understand last time that this is the way man is. Man does not want to be accountable. Man wants to go his own way. Man wants to do his own thing. So man pursues every avenue he can to obtain what he thinks he needs.

He will spend all of his money, use all of his resources, use everything at his disposal to obtain what he so desperately he wants only to find that in seeking it in the world, there's nothing there. He went to that distant country. He told you that distant country is described in Ephesians 2, verse number 12, when it says having no hope and without God in the world. The distant country is the heart of a man that goes a different direction than God. He's without God. He is without hope in the world.

And so what did he do? He hung on to one of those Gentiles. He says, give me a job. I've got to have a job, got to have a job, got to have a job. Gentiles said, I don't have a job. He says, I'll do anything. I'll feed you pigs, great. Do that. So he fed the pigs. I couldn't find out because he had no money, he had to eat the pig's food. He found himself wrestling with the pigs and fighting the pigs for their food. I'm sharing the story with my children the other day as we were having devotions around the breakfast table, helping them understand how wonderful it would be to eat dog food or cat food for breakfast.

And they thought that was deplorable. I said, could you imagine eating pigs food for breakfast? Here's this guy. He's trying to feed his stomach, trying to fill the emptiness of his life. And the only thing he had was And the Bible tells us uniquely that no one was giving anything to him. And God brought him to the end of himself. And the Bible says, and the man came to his senses.

And he resolved in his mind to get up to go to his father and to tell him what he did wrong. And in that, we have the essence of true repentance. And I'm giving you seven principles that will tell you what true repentance is. Let me review them real quickly for you.

the story we left off. The first one is that when a man repents of his sins, he reflects upon the destiny of his life.

And this man had run out of angles, he had run out of schemes, he had run out of plans, he had nothing left. And when nothing was left, God had his attention. This is not true that as long as you have something, as long as you have a friend, as long as you have finances, As long as you have facilities, as long as you have something to hold on to, you don't look to God. But when God strips you of everything, you have to look to God, right? This man had nothing, nothing. He would reflect upon the destiny of his life.

He said, I will arise and I will go to my father's house. He didn't say, you know what, I think I'll get up and maybe next week I'll go see Dad. No, it was right then. This man knew in his heart that his father had the answer. He knew in his heart that what he did was wrong. And number two, principle, knowing do you reflect upon the destiny of your life, but you realize the severity of your sin.

And while I give you seven principles, they don't necessarily happen one upon the other, this happens first, and then a few minutes later this happens or the next day of this happens, they're all intertwined together.

But he realizes the severity of a sin. And that's why people have a hard time repenting, right? Because they don't realize the severity of their sin, that they've sinned against Almighty God. That is so crucial for us to grasp. Godly sorrow doesn't grieve. Listen, Godly sorrow doesn't grieve over the pain my sin causes me as much as the pain my sin causes my God. You will find that there are people who cry because of the consequences of their sin. If I wouldn't have done it, then this wouldn't have happened.

And rightly so, you should grieve over the consequences of your sin, but it should grieve you even deeper that you sinned against the Holy God. And that his standard is perfection, and you fell way short of that standard, and you violated the law of God. That's true, repentance. That's realizing the severity of your sin. What makes sin so bad is not that you hurt somebody else, but you violated the law of God. That's what makes sin so ugly and so nasty and so bad. The third principle is this, that you recognize the responsibility is all yours.

It's It's always somebody else's fault. It's never my fault. But the repentant heart understands, I have violated the law of God. There's no excuse. Oh, you can give an excuse. You can say, well, if this wouldn't have happened, then I probably wouldn't have done that. But you don't know that, see? The bottom line is you made the wrong choice. You went the wrong direction. It's your fault. David said, I, I have sinned. The public and said, oh, God, be merciful to me a sinner. This lost son said, I have sinned.

I have sinned. You know, when was the last time somebody ever came to you, repentant of their sins? And you said, you know what? I have sinned against God and you. Think about that. When was the last time somebody ever said that that you hurt? Most of our repentance is candy-coated with, you know, I'm really sorry. You know, things turn out this way. You know, I wish it could have been better. And that's our idea of repentance. But you have somebody coming to you and say, you know, I've sinned. I've sinned against God and I've sinned against you.

Oh, please forgive me. There's a heart that demonstrates repentance, right? And this is this young man. He realized the severity of a sin and he recognized that the responsibility was his and his alone before God. Listen, on the day of judgment, when you stand before God, you're all alone. It's you and God. And you can blame anybody else you want, but there are no excuses. You're at fault, and you will suffer the consequences of your sin if you don't believe in the God who came to die for your sins.

The fourth principle is this, is that a truly repentant heart responds to his authority with no agenda and no demands. A true repentant heart responds to his God-given authority with no agenda and no. demands. The claims of God unquestionably. It says, yes, Lord, whatever you say, that I will do. Principle number five. A man who is truly repentant refuses the company of his past. Repent and live was what God said. Refuse the company of your past. This boy left it all behind to go back to his father's house.

Principle number six, when a man, when a woman is truly repentant, a repentant spirit repudiates all iniquity, both seen and unseen. You see, when you refuse your past, what you're saying is that what I did before is wrong, I don't want to do it again. And so it's repugnant to you. And some of you're probably thinking, man, that mean I can never sin again? Well, it means you never want to sin again. Oh, you'll sin because you've got to sin nature. And you're going to wrestle with that till the day you go home to be with the Lord.

But do you want to sin? Or do you want to do what God says? That's the bottom line, right? What do you want to do? And when you sin, do you repent of your sin? Say, God, I was wrong. I've sinned against thee, oh, Lord. Forgive me. Help me never to do it again. That's repentance. Help me never to do it again. I don't want to ever do it again. If you say, Lord, forgive me. In the back of your mind saying, but tomorrow I'll do it again. That's not repentance. That's negotiating with God. God knows what you're thinking, right?

He knows in the back of your mind, you're thinking, well, you know, he's asking me to forgive him, but in the back of his mind, he's saying, I'm going to do this again tomorrow. I got it all planned out already. I know exactly who I'm going to see when I'm going to see it, how I'm going to say it. That's presumptuous sin. Psalm said, keep me from presumptuous sins, the Lord. The repentant heart repudiates all iniquity, both seen and unseen. And lastly, the truly repentant spirit rejoices in the liberty and subpoenaed.

sufficiency in Jesus Christ. Rejoices in the liberty and the sufficiency found only in Jesus Christ. You will note that when they came, when the boy came back and they killed the fatted calf, the text tells us at verse number 24, they began to be married. Who's they? That's everybody, the father and the son, right? And the repentant spirit is the one who rejoices. in the liberty in Jesus Christ. Why? Because the unrepentant spirit is a slave to sin. He's in bondage to that sin. And so when you repent of your sin, you're rejoicing the fact that you've been set free by God Almighty from that which has enslaved you.

And this young man was set free from the bondage of iniquity. He said free to rest in the realm of accountability to his father. And a truly repentant Spirit rejoices not only in the liberty, but in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ alone. Because Jesus is sufficient, right? He's alone. He alone is sufficient to meet all my needs. He alone is sufficient enough to take care of me and watch over me. He is everything I need. He is everything I long for. In Jesus Christ is everything, everything. And the repentant heart, he realizes that.

Oh, there are many things in this life that make us happy. but no one is truly happy until Christ is king of your life. When he is king, he got security, right? You got security. This boy had security. He was insecure. Oh, he thought he was secure. Well, he had money, but he lost his money. He lost his security. When he lost his job, he lost his security. But in Christ, in his father's home, he had complete security. That's why the Bible says, he comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.

You have security. The sufficiency of Christ gives you security. It gives you an identity, right? Why? To as many has believed in him, to then give you power to become the sons of God. You have a brand new identity. This boy went looking for identity. He went searching for that which would make him famous, popular, great. What did he find? Nothing? There's nothing in the world that will suffice. There's nothing in the world that will make him great. Only God can do that. And God made him a son. I'm not worthy to be your slave.

And he wrapped him up and took him back as his son. and God makes us his sons. That gives us identity. We're not in search of our identity. We're not going around trying to get more money, get a better job, climb the corporate ladder, thinking that we're better than everybody else, and somehow I can get my name in print across the TV or on People magazine or USA Today, so people will know who are. Who cares? If you care about that stuff, you've got a problem. Big problem. One is your name will probably never get there.

And number two, it's all futile. It's all futile. We have the name of God on our lives. That's our identity. This boy, he found security. He found identity. He found mercy, didn't he? He found mercy. The Bible says that whoever confesses and forsakes his sin shall find mercy.

Proverbs 2813. That's what he found. He found mercy. Identity. Security. He found joy. Pure, true joy. You see, he thought that going out there, bought it money, do whatever he wanted to do, he had it all. He had the world in his hands, but he had no joy. Oh, he's happy, but he had no joy. Christ says, I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.

John says, I write these things into you that you might have joy. Joy, that's what we got. And you rejoice in the liberty and in the sufficiency found in Jesus Christ, alone. That's a repentant spirit. Oh, that's so good. So good. Now you know why God commands all men everywhere to repent, to repent, to get right with him, to turn from from where they are to to where God wants them to be. I couldn't help but think of Proverbs 114 when I read the story of this lost son. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

All is riches. Will not profit him in the day. ever ask. When the famine came, his riches meant nothing. But righteousness delivers one's soul from death. Listen, when you acknowledge God's holiness, you admit your sinfulness. When you admit your sinfulness, you will acquire his righteousness. And that's where God wants every one of us. I trust that you're there. I trust that you've repented of your sins. I trust that you've gotten right with Jesus Christ. And that every day, you live a life that's characterized by true repentance because you want to have a relationship with Christ that's filled with liberty and joy because of who he is and what he's done.

Let's pray together. I'm