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In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp explores the parable of the Prodigal Son, focusing on the themes of grace, the nature of sin, and the contrasting attitudes of the two brothers. He emphasizes that the younger and older brothers are lost in their ways and that a genuine relationship with the Father is based on grace rather than moral performance. Pastor Aaron highlights the dangers of a religious mindset that seeks to earn God's favor through good works and the importance of recognizing our need for grace regardless of our actions.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- The Prodigal Son's return signifies repentance and grace.
- The father's compassion illustrates unconditional love.
- Both sons represent different ways of being lost.
- Jesus's parables challenge our understanding of sin and grace.
- Goodness can separate us from God just as much as sin.
- Religious mindset can lead to arrogance and superiority.
- True obedience stems from love, not duty.
- Grace is a gift that cannot be earned.
- We must let go of our righteousness to accept grace.
- Jesus's sacrifice allows us to have a seat at the Father's table.
Creators & Guests
What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?
Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.
Aaron Shamp (00:00.209)
me. I know I'm not as tall as others, but I guess as long as you can hear me, that's what matters.
So today we are going to be concluding the series that we started several weeks ago where we've been looking at really all three of Jesus's parables in Luke chapter 15, but spent most of our time looking at his parable that we call the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. And so each week we've been taking out one piece of that parable and kind of trying to blow up that piece into a bigger
picture to see what Jesus is saying there and really appreciate all that he fits into this short story and all that we have to learn from it about what it means to be in relationship with God to be in God's family and to have a seat at the Father's table and so today we are going to be in Luke chapter 15 one more time Luke chapter 15 and I'm gonna be reading verses 17 through 22 so we're be picking up kind of in the middle or towards the middle of the
the parable of the prodigal son and and we'll take it from there so Luke chapter 15 and starting verse 17
Aaron Shamp (01:25.15)
Okay, well if we are already and we are in Luke chapter 15, I'm going to start reading in verse 17.
Aaron Shamp (01:35.551)
This is speaking of the younger son. It says, he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food? And here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up, go to my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers. So he got up and went to his father.
But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father told his servants, quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it.
and let's celebrate with a feast. Because the son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field. As he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants questioning what these things meant. Your brother is here, he told him. And your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.
Then he became angry and didn't want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him. But he replied to his father, look, I have been slaving many years for you and I have never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.
Son, he said to him, you were always with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice because his brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.
Aaron Shamp (03:47.303)
If we remember the context that Jesus was giving this series of three parables in, remember he gives the parable of the lost sheep and then the lost coin and then the parable about these two sons. He's giving it in the context of responding to some conflict that he had created because he was, it says in verses one and two that he was welcoming sinners to himself and that he was eating with them. So there were all these people who were the bad people in the eyes of
of this time, right? They were the sinners and tax collectors. They were the prodigal sons, like we read about in this story, who were far from the Father and who were squandering all that the Father had given them in their irreligious living. And in response to how Jesus was welcoming these people to himself and creating community with them, it says that the Pharisees were grumbling. You know, they questioned Jesus, Jesus's legitimacy because he was welcoming these kind of
people around him. And they thought to themselves, you know, if he really was who he claimed to be, which they thought was only a teacher or a prophet, then he wouldn't be in fellowship with these people. He wouldn't be eating with them. And so in response to that, that's why Jesus tells them this parable. And that's why in the parable of the prodigal son, it's not just a story about the younger son, but it's also a story about the older brother. Because what Jesus is doing is he's kind of shattering
the way that they were thinking about how we relate to God and what kind of people there are in the world. And it also kind of challenges the way that we often think about this. We commonly assume that there are two ways to live or that there are just two ways to relate to God. You're either in the church or you're in the world, right? You're either a good church-going Christian or you're like that prodigal son. You're like the sinners and tax collectors that Jesus was
welcoming around himself, who is out there in the world and engaging in all of the sinfulness of the world and so on. Another way saying is you're either inside the party or outside the party. But Jesus is breaking that and he's challenging it. He's challenging our understandings of sin, lostness, but as well as grace and showing us the story of the man with two sons.
Aaron Shamp (06:09.778)
What's important for us to remember is that whenever Jesus was giving this parable, and this is true honestly of all of his parables, he wasn't just trying to give us a moral story.
Jesus's parables should not be read the same way that we read something like Aesop's fables, right? Where it's a little story that has a moral lesson for us to discover in it and then try to start practicing that in our lives. That's not what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is teaching us about the nature of becoming one of God's children. He's teaching us how we enter into God's family, how we come into relationship with him, about the nature of God and the nature of the kingdom.
And so that's what he's doing in this story as well and what we're going to learn today by looking at specifically the elder brother in this story. So we're going to look at the elder brother and what happens with him towards the end here. We're going to look at how do we know if we are an elder brother because this is a little bit harder to identify than the younger son, the prodigal son, right, who took his inheritance and squandered it away. And then lastly, we're going to look at that great
party, okay? So what we see here by the end of the story is that Jesus shows us, it starts out that there was a man with two sons, the younger one took his inheritance and left with it and he squandered all that wealth in reckless living. He squandered it sinfully with prostitutes and so on as the older brother mentions here, but the older brother stays home.
So you have these two sons who one is we can say a bad son and another one who is at least on the surface a good son. The elder son stays with the father. He works for the father. He's loyal to the family business and so on. He obeys. He does all the right things. He stays home while the other son leaves the household.
Aaron Shamp (08:11.346)
But by the end of the story, we see something surprising happen. We see that the bad son is the one who is back in the father's household. He is the one who is in the party at the end of the story. And it's actually the good son who is down at the end of the story, separated from the father and outside of the household, outside of this great party. In the end, it was the elder brother, the good brother that was left out of the feast. And what Jesus is showing us here.
is that though they do it in very different ways, both sons were not truly, they did not truly love their father, but they only loved the father's possessions. They only loved the father's possessions. This is true of both of them. It's the reason that the younger son left the home and the older son stayed.
We see this by the end of the story whenever he refuses to go into the party because he says, you know, I stayed here. I've worked for you. I have obeyed you. And yet you never even gave me a goat.
He refuses to join in the celebration on what was we could possibly say the greatest and most joyous day of that father's life. Right. He says that my son was dead and is alive again. Obviously he's not speaking literally here. There was no resurrection in the story but he's speaking of the experience of bringing his son back into the home. It's as though he had lost his son even with such finality as if he were dead and he is now alive again and brought back
home. He's filled with joy. He's throwing the celebration. And the older son, if he really loved his father, if he truly loved his family, and not just what he could get from his father, he would have joined in with the father's joy. He would have joined in with the celebration. But instead, at the end of the story there, he is the one who is left out. He is the one who doesn't go into the home. He is the one who doesn't go into the party. And once again, why is it
Aaron Shamp (10:15.42)
He says, all these years I have been slaving for you. I have never disobeyed you.
At the end of the story, what we see is that the older brother is not left out of the party in spite of his goodness. He is left out because of his goodness. It is on the grounds of his goodness, his obedience, his duty and work that he has given for the father. It is on those grounds for why he doesn't enter back into the party. Now remember the context that Jesus is speaking to.
where he is welcoming sinners and tax collectors to himself. They are joining.
around the table with Jesus in relationship with Jesus who Jesus brings us to the Father, right? So now this is the Father's table, we might say, where Jesus is bringing these tax collectors and sinners and it is the Pharisees who are left out and they are grumbling just like that older son. And Jesus is trying to point out to them and show them why they are left out of the table as well. They are left out of the table with Jesus just like the older son, not in spite of their goodness. It's not as though they hadn't reached
a certain level of their goodness or they had done something that overrided their goodness but that it was because of their goodness why they didn't enter at the table with Jesus.
Aaron Shamp (11:37.011)
The elder brother is left out of the feast. He lost his seat because he obeyed and because of his pride and his obedience. And so what Jesus is doing here once again is he is challenging our assumptions of how we think we relate to God and he's challenging us on what we typically assume actually separates us from God. We think it's only those younger sons' sins that can separate us from God. You know what I mean by that? It's only those type of lifestyles and those things that we can do that sort of
mirror the younger son, the prodigal son in this story that can separate us from God. But there's actually something else that can separate us from God too. And that's whenever we attempt to gain access to the Father's table through our own efforts.
Aaron Shamp (12:25.427)
The reason that the younger son gains a seat back at the father's table is because he came back on the father's terms. He comes back and he has his speech pre-prepared, right? I've sinned, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, make me like one of your hired servants. He had a bargain ready to give with his father to be accepted back, even if not into the home, in the family, but somewhat back, right?
But the father cuts him off whenever he tries to give that speech. We've looked at this a couple of times in this series. He comes and he gives his speech to the father, I've sinned, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But before he could give his bargaining chip or make his offer of here's why or how you can bring me back, the father cuts him off and he covers him with a robe. He puts a ring on his finger and he slaughters the calf so that they might have a feast.
He comes back into the family because he does so on the father's terms. The older brother is left out of the feast because he will only be in the feast on his terms.
and not the fathers. Once again, it is his goodness, his righteous record that is separating him from the father. And so here's what I want us to see. There are actually two ways that we can be separated from God. The first one, and this is the obvious one that's shown through the younger son, is what we can call irreligion.
Irreligion is living like the younger son. It's living in the ways of the world, the obvious sinful lifestyles and so on that we can point to that the sinners and tax collectors that Jesus would have been welcoming around himself would have been living in and that many people are living in today. It's those obvious things that in the church and as Christians we point to and say that this is what it means to be away from God. But what Jesus shows us is that
Aaron Shamp (14:17.875)
Yes, irreligion, the path of the younger son is one way to be separated from God, from the Father. But religion is another way that we can be separated from God. And what I mean by this is not just organized religion or being in the church, but what I mean by this is a religious lifestyle, religious mindset whereby...
We are attempting to gain our righteousness or attempting to earn our seat at the Father's table by keeping all the rules and by moral conformity. It's very possible for us, just like the sons in this story, to not truly love God.
and to not truly love the Father, but instead to only want to receive the Father's things. And what we can do in this situation, the Father's things might be very good things, like we don't want to go to hell. And so we practice morality. We try to live out good works and so on, assuming that by being very good, God can accept us and he can spare us from hell. In other ways, we might be living out
very good lives of moral works, thinking that whenever we do so, God will give us blessings in this life in return. This is obvious in cases such as those who preach a prosperity gospel, but look, that's very obvious. And I know that many of us in here, probably all of us in here at Redeemer, are not likely to fall into that.
But what we are, even for those of us in here at Redeemer, myself included, what we are likely to fall into is a mindset that if I live right, well then God will bless me with just, with a good life, with being spared from certain trials, from opening the doors that I want him to open, from delivering me from the storms that I would rather not go through.
Aaron Shamp (16:17.725)
We can do the very same thing as well, where we are obeying. We're going to church. Maybe we're even serving in church. We are avoiding sins and so on. But we're not doing these things because we love God. We're doing them because we assume if we get those behaviors right, God will bless us in return. This is a religious mindset.
It's this kind of mindset is is somewhat exemplified in the scene in the movie Chariots of Fire. If you've ever seen that movie before, there's a scene that movie where it's an historical fiction about about the real Olympics and I can't remember the year and Eric Lindell ran in those Olympics. Right. But there's also another runner there, kind of another star runner with with is it Linda or Lido?
Anybody know? I'm questioning myself. Yeah, yeah, no in, yeah, liddle.
know, whatever. Eric Liddell, right? He was kind of their star runner in the Olympics that year, but there was another guy named Harold Abrams who was one of their star runners. Both these guys ran either the 100 or 400. You know, as most track runners, they kind of had a few races they ran. And at one point in the movie, Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrams is asked what fuels his drive to run and to win. And he said this.
He said, I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor. He's describing the 100 meter dash here, where it's just one straight shot, very short, very quick. He says, I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor four feet wide with 10 lonely seconds to justify my whole existence.
Aaron Shamp (17:57.139)
You see, for him, his drive, his work, the discipline, doing all the right things that he had done in his craft, in his sport, was not just in order to win a medal, but by winning that medal, by winning that race, by being the best of the best, it would somehow justify him, as he says, justify his existence. Many of us as well have that something, maybe it's not a hundred meter dash, but many of us have that something that we work hard on in our life, that we try to discipline
And we don't do so to bring glory to God or because we love God. In fact, we often don't do so out of any kind of joy, but we do so because we are trying to justify ourselves and justify our existence. Some possibly gain access to the banquet table of God.
Once again, it's easy for us to spot the people who choose the path of irreligion, like the younger sons, but it's a little bit harder for us to spot the path of religion or like what the elder brother does in this story. And here's why it's so much easier in one case but not in the other. Because those who choose the path of irreligion, they're out in the world. Like the younger son, they're in the pig sty. Those who choose the path of religion, of good works, are in the church, often. So how do we know
if we are elder brothers, how do we know if we are falling into the same error of assuming how we relate to God and receive his blessings just like the older brother in this story? Let me give you three characteristics that you can look for in your life that will give you clue to if you are living as an elder brother. Here's the first one. First, there's an undercurrent of anger in your life. There's an undercurrent of anger.
Now what I mean by that is by undercurrent it means that perhaps you're not always throwing fits.
Aaron Shamp (19:53.551)
and having temper tantrums and grinding your teeth and shaking your fists. Okay, perhaps you're not always doing that, but beneath all of the other activities that you do in your life, whether it's work or your home responsibilities and so on, there is always that undercurrent there. There is something beneath the surface. There is an anger or a frustration that is at times maybe being controlled and at other times not being controlled. It explodes. Or there's that undercurrent
of anger and frustration that's driving the choices that we make, the behaviors that we act out, the assumptions that we hold about life and the world and others. There's that undercurrent of anger there. Now why is it there? That anger and that frustration? Often it is there because we are believing and we're living with this assumption that our moral performance earns blessing.
But if you live in this world for a week or more, then there's gonna be frustrations, right? There's gonna be setbacks and obstacles that come to that kind of life that you think you deserve, or that kind of life that you would like to be living instead of the one that you have with all of its problems and so on.
If you have this assumption that my goodness, and my doing the right thing, my moral behavior, maybe even my religious works and acts should be giving me a life better than the one that I have. If you have that assumption, then yes, there's gonna be that undercurrent always beneath the surface in your heart of anger, of frustration. Often,
especially if we have good theology, we don't outright say this in our minds, but if we look deep beneath the surface, we will frequently find that that assumption is operating somewhere in our heart. So that's one of the first things we can look for to know, are we living like an elder brother? Is there that undercurrent of anger or frustration in your life? Second, there's duty without beauty in your life.
Aaron Shamp (22:05.875)
What I mean by this is that older brothers obey, but there's no joy in it. Go back to the story here whenever the father is talking to his older son and the son responds to him by saying, says, I have been slaving for you all these years. The way he phrases that, does it make it sound as though that son was filled with joy to serve his father?
that he was happy to contribute to his father's vision and to uphold his father's values and to build up the father's home. There's no joy in that. There's no happiness in that. There's no gratitude in that. It shows he has been serving, yes. He has been doing the right things, yes, but not out of joy, not truly out of love for the father. He says, all these years I have been slaving for you.
Whereas in contrast, what Jesus tells us is this, that the greatest law in what sums up all the law, true obedience to God, he says, is to love the Lord your God. We say that in our services, at the end of our services every week, to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. What Jesus is saying here is that our relationship with God will be one where we obey.
We uphold his commands. We contribute to his vision of the kingdom, but we do so out of love and not out of trying to get something back from God. Loving the Lord your God as summing up and fulfilling all the law doesn't just mean that we have warm feelings for God and that we live as we desire. Okay, it doesn't mean that. But on the other hand, it doesn't mean that we just obey so we can get something in return.
Loving God is summing up all of the law means that we obey, we follow his law, we serve his will, and we do so in place of love. We do so with joy. There's a beauty to it. Yes, we have a duty before God, but there is a beauty behind it. There's a joy in it. There is gratitude in our service and obedience to God the Father. And so whenever you look at your life, is there duty without beauty?
Aaron Shamp (24:31.11)
Are you obeying and doing the right things, but from that place of frustration, from a place of anxiety, from a place of fear, rather than from a place of joy? To truly be a son or daughter in the household of God means that you will, out of the joy that you have from being in relationship with God and receiving his blessings, in response to what he has done for you, in a place of adoration and love, yes, we serve him, we obey him.
So first, there's an undercurrent of anger and frustration in your life. Secondly, you'll see that you have obedience without joy or there will be duty without beauty in your life. The third characteristic to look for is that there is arrogance and superiority towards others in your life. Once again, the older brother, at the end of the story, because he had obeyed so well,
And because he thought that he earned all the blessings and the kind of celebration that is being thrown for the younger son because he had obeyed so well. Because of these things, he looks at his younger brother and he is no longer even willing to call him his younger brother. But he says, but whenever this son of yours comes back, right.
Not even willing to acknowledge him and receive him back as his brother, but just this son of yours. The older brother wants to have nothing to do with him. Why? Well, once again, because he had done so well, because he had stayed, because he had obeyed. It gave him a sense of superiority towards his younger brother to such an extent that he was not even willing to place himself on the same plane, to place himself in the same category.
as that younger son.
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We as well, if we live with, and we are operating on that religious mindset, where we assume that it is our goodness and our moral actions that earn our seat at the Father's table and that hold us in relationship with God, then it will naturally lead us to a place where we have our life is filled with arrogance in our moral achievements and we have superiority towards those, whether they be in the world or so on, who are not living as well as we are.
We will be unwilling to place ourselves on the same plane as them. We'll see ourselves as higher, as better. We will look around at the sinners and tax collectors, so to speak, and say, these sons of yours. Just like the Pharisees, just like the elder brother here. There's a Christian scholar named Richard F. Loveless. And he said this, he said,
who are no longer sure that God loves them and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously, radically insecure persons. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defense and assertion of their own righteousness, and defensive criticism of others. Do you find that in your own life?
Do you find an arrogance there in your own moral achievements and all the things that you deserve because of it? It might be subtle. It might be operating beneath the surface, just like that anger or frustration. Do you find yourself often having an attitude of superiority to people who don't have it as together as you do?
and you are tempted to look down upon them and where they're at in their life because they didn't make the right choices like you did. The people who are outside of the church, right, we might be tempted to look down on them because they do not believe the right things as we do. No, it might be true that you have made better choices. It might be true that you have better theology, that you believe in the right gospel.
Aaron Shamp (28:24.915)
But any time that those things lead us to arrogance, that's a sign that we're starting to base our righteousness on those things.
Aaron Shamp (28:34.78)
You know, a few weeks ago, I pointed out how the father ran out to his younger son. It's a beautiful scene. It's one of the reasons that it makes that this story is so powerful and has been so for generations upon generations. The father runs out to his lost son to meet him and embrace him and bring him back into the home. He doesn't just sit back and wait for the son to come before him, groveling in the dust before his feet.
But the father also goes out to the older son. Whenever that older son is left out of the feast and he refuses to go into the party, whenever he hears from the servant what's going on, the father goes to him as well.
The father ran out to his older son as well. He leaves his feast so that he might go out and plead with his son to come in to the house. And if we step outside of the story, then we see what's happening here. Jesus, through the story, is pleading with the Pharisees that they might let go of their righteousness, they might let go of their goodness that is holding them back from being at the table with him and with those people that they think they are so much better than because of their goodness.
He is pleading with them, going to them. Moreover, what he's doing here, if we try to step into this world, remember, not long after this, it is the very same group of people who will be the ones to orchestrate his crucifixion. The Pharisees.
the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious rulers of that time, these were the very ones who are going to be the ones to hold a trial over Jesus, to go before Pilate and to demand that Jesus would be crucified, that he would be tortured and executed. It is these people that Jesus is pleading with to come to his table. It is his enemies that he is pleading with, the very ones who would execute him.
Aaron Shamp (30:33.416)
What we see Jesus is doing here in going to them, in pleading with them to come to the table, to let go of their righteousness, doing so even with his enemies, Jesus had given up his seat at the table.
Jesus had left his seat at the Father's table so that he might come and search and rescue both of those younger sons, the ones who had chosen irreligion, the sinners and the task collectors, but also that he might come and rescue of those older brothers, those Pharisees, those who tend to look at their good works and righteousness and place their trust and security in their own performance. People like perhaps many of us in here.
Jesus gave up his seat at the table for us older brothers as well. He gave up his seat at the table so that we could be granted access to the Father's banquet. What the Pharisees needed to learn is that the sinners and tax collectors were being welcomed and had a seat at the Father's table based on Jesus's work, so it was a gift of grace. And they needed that grace as well.
They thought their goodness earned their seat. Jesus is showing them, no, you will not come on your terms, you will come on the Father's terms, which are the terms of grace. Grace means to be granted access to a table that you don't deserve to be at. Those sinners and tax collectors didn't deserve it. The younger son, whenever he comes back home in this story and he received all those blessings and the celebration, he didn't deserve it, but that is grace. And for those Pharisees and for the older brother in this story,
They didn't think they needed grace to have a seat at the table. The older son, had slaved for it.
Aaron Shamp (32:24.009)
He had obeyed for it. The Pharisees looked at their moral performance and they had worked for it. They didn't think they needed grace. But what Jesus is showing us is that we all need grace and this grace is only available through him who gave up his seat so that we might be granted that seat at the Father's table. Grace is not just an impersonal ticket to heaven. Grace is being invited to dine with God at his table.
in a relationship with him, in his family. But whenever Jesus did this, because he was a perfect son of the father, Jesus did not leave his seat and give up his life on the cross. Doing all these things to achieve salvation for us, he didn't do it begrudgingly. Jesus is not an older brother, like the older brother in this story, who obeys his father out of anger, frustration.
or just duty without beauty.
Because Jesus is a perfect son. Whenever God the Father had given him the task of coming to earth, living the perfect life and dying on the cross, receiving the penalty for our sin that we should have paid, he absorbed in himself. Whenever God the Father gave his son that task, he did not do it begrudgingly or out of frustration, but because he was the perfect son who loved the Father and who took joy in what the Father took joy in and wanted what the Father wanted, he accepted that mission
with joy. He accepted that mission out of love. In Romans chapter five and verse eight, Paul says this, he said that while we were still enemies, Jesus proved or demonstrated his love for us by dying for us. And I just, for all the years that I've been walking with Christ and reading the Bible, I cannot get over that phrase.
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while we were still his enemies.
He was pleading with his enemies, the Pharisees, in this context here. He shows us how the father pleaded with his younger son. And he's doing the same thing with us. He was calling us to let go of not just those idols and those forms of sinful, irreligious things that we might do, but also to let go of our own righteousness.
to let go of our goodness, to let go of our moral performance, to let go of any resume or pedigree or achievement that we think could possibly contribute to earning our seat at the Father's table. Jesus is pleading with us to let go all those things and he proves his work.
by dying for us out of love, even while we are still his enemies. So here is what this means. It means, on the one hand, it is incredibly humbling for us.
church-going people, for those of you who have lived very good lives. It is incredibly humbling for us to hear that we will sit at the Father's table by the very same grace that saves the worst of the worst, the most irreligious of irreligious, the most prodigal of all prodigal sons, the same grace that they will enter the table at. It is that same grace that we will sit at the table at. Our religious works and moral
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and goodness will contribute nothing at all. It is God's grace 100%. That is humbling.
But if you keep in mind this as well, that yes, it is humbling that we will enter by that grace, but that God the Father and Jesus Christ were filled with joy to achieve salvation so that you might enter by grace. That Jesus demonstrates and proves his love for you by achieving redemption and grace that you might enter the table. And what that does is that fills you with hope and that lifts your heart.
higher than you ever imagined possible. So on the one hand, it will remove all grounds for superiority. It will remove all grounds for arrogance in your life, thinking that, well, my better choices make me higher or better off than others, right? It will remove grounds for all that. But it will not just humiliate you and leave you in the dust, it'll raise you up.
There's this scene in an episode of NCIS where a man confesses to a crime. And there are some Marines there who are going to arrest him for the crime that he committed. And wherever they go, he's wearing a jacket and a tie. And they go to arrest him and his clothes are somewhat shifted. And it shows that there's a Medal of Honor hanging around his neck. And whenever that Medal of Honor is revealed, they snap into salute.
They go from arresting him to snapping in his salute whenever they see that metal that is on his chest. And similarly, for all of us in here, whether you have been a younger son or an older son or a little bit of both or one or the other at different times in your life, none of us are going to enter heaven as beggars.
Aaron Shamp (37:52.627)
But whenever we enter heaven, wrapped up in the finest robe, which is the robe of Christ, like that criminal that had that medal of honor, though on the inside we are sinners and unrighteous because we are wrapped up in the robes of Christ, whenever we enter the gates of heaven, the angels will salute, they will sing, they will rejoice, not because of any achievements of our own.
but because of the work of Christ that we are covered in. If you get the gospel, if you get what Jesus is telling us here, that he gave up his life for you, he achieved a righteousness for you, he earned the favor of God the Father on your behalf, then it will humble you to the dust. But if you look at his love displayed for you and the gift that he has for you, then it will raise you higher than the stars.
It will remove all superiority and it will make you the most secure, confident person you ever could have been compared to living your life on your own terms by your own achievements and your own righteousness. If we could get this gospel today, it would greatly bring about real change in your life. For so many of us who have been living with those undercurrents of anger and frustration.
it will remove those so that we can start to live instead by joy and in freedom. For those of us who have been obeying without love and joy, who have been following our duty, but without the beauty of being in relationship that comes with God behind it, you can actually start living out righteousness and joy and not because you have something to prove. We can no longer view ourselves as superior to anyone.
anyone at all.
Aaron Shamp (39:44.85)
but in humility, see them as lost sons that need the Father as much as we do on the grounds of grace that the Father extends. Let's pray.
Aaron Shamp (39:57.98)
Lord, I ask that you would help us to receive and understand this gospel today. For those of us who have been following the path of the younger son, the path of irreligion, help us to see that there is no distance that we can run to that separates us from your pursuing love and grace and that we are welcomed back into the family and given a seat at the table based upon the work of Christ.
And for those older brothers in here, those of us who are tempted to live righteously or to perform moral works in order to prove something, in order to gain something, in order to earn something, Father, would you give us freedom from that kind of life? Because we.
are captivated and overwhelmed with the far surpassing worth and achievement of what Jesus has done for us. And that we, just as everyone at your table, are welcomed to it on the grounds of your grace and your grace alone. Let this bring about real change in our hearts this week. So that we might live lives that are characterized by joy and love and gratitude.
rather than insecurity and arrogance.
Aaron Shamp (41:20.232)
Father, we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our older brother, who has accomplished salvation for us.
and achieved our seat at your table. We pray in his name, amen. Let us stand together now and respond.