Address—Tim Roach
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Maybe we could start by seeing him #283.
Love that transcends our highest powers demands our soul, our life, our all.
#283.
When we serve.
Uh-huh.
It's spray.
There's a verse that was read this morning in the Reading meeting.
John 1225.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
And he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life.
There was an A big art show in Grand Rapids, MI.
And one of the exhibits was a life-size UH coffin made out of cigarette butts.
The handles were made out of cigars and they had a guest book there so the visitors could sign and leave messages.
One lady.
She wrote a message in that book.
And it said only one life will soon be passed only with Son, for Christ will last.
The purpose of the judgment seat.
Is to find everything in your life that will give glory and honor to God.
And it is. And the judgment seat is also to remove anything that would not give glory and honor to God.
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And so the judgment see after the judgment seat of Christ, I want you to think.
What will you have left at the end of your life that will give glory to God?
I want to speak tonight about the prodigal son.
And I want to look at the prodigal son in a little different light than we normally look at him. Often it's with the gospel.
But first we want to know what does prodigal mean?
Sometimes we think it means somebody who wanders away gets lost into trouble.
But the definition of prodigal is one who is extremely wasteful.
Extravagant living, living beyond their means.
The prodigal son. He was extremely wasteful. He lived in extravagant lifestyle.
And eventually, he lost it all.
Prodigal son wasted his time. He wasted his money. He wasted his energy. He wasted his life.
Maybe. Maybe you are looking at this world and think it has a lot to offer and it does. It does.
But when you start to live beyond your means.
You becoming a prodigal?
When you get dead to go into business and debt to buy a car and debt to buy a house, and you and you spend more than you're able to pay and you start living beyond your means.
You become a prodigal.
And then you begin to serve the debt that you're you're building up because now you have to work and you have to work hard to be able to pay the bills.
We're told that no man can serve 2 masters.
You cannot serve God and Mammoth, and so if you are serving to pay off your debts and the Lord asks you to go somewhere to serve Him, you can't go.
Because you have to pay off your debts, the borrower is servant to the lender. Luke 15.
Today we're going to look at the prodigals, the prodigal son as a believer who forgets about God and chases the pleasures of the world.
When the prodigal son returns.
God shows him love and mercy when he returns.
Luke 15 read verse 1112. A certain man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father.
Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me, and he divided unto them his living. The Father gave the Son everything he needed to survive in this world, if he was wise with those things that he had been given.
And the believer also is the same way. We have been given a valuable treasure, a valuable inheritance that we can serve. The Lord God gives us everything required to live the Christian life.
He's given us eternal life. Eternal life is the very life of Christ. It is holy. It is righteous. It cannot sin. It wants to do those things that please the Lord.
It is Christ Himself, eternal life.
We have another blessing. We've been given the Holy Spirit, so now we have the power to be able to live in the new life. We've been given the word of God with instructions as to how we can live our Christian life. And we've been given the example of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, how to live and how to behave in this world. We have these many blessings. What will you do with these blessings?
Will you use them?
Or will you abuse them?
Let's go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 3.
2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 5.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.
The prodigal son had all this sufficiency.
For his life. Yet he turned his back on it. He wasted it. He ruined his life.
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He was enjoying the pleasures of this world and as a young person.
Especially when we're born into a Christian family, we've been raised with Christian values, We've been protected from much that the world has to offer and to destroy us.
We tend to wonder, is the world really that bad?
We want to try it out and see for ourselves and we feel like we're missing out on something because we haven't done those things that seem and sound so wonderful.
But you know what? We really We don't need the pleasures of this world. We don't need the success of this world. We don't need the entertainment of this world.
We our sufficiency is in Christ.
But.
But with capital letters, those temptations of the world, they are there, and they are a temptation.
And we all have a little bit of prodigal potential in each and every one of us.
The Lord Jesus is sufficient for you. He's sufficient for me in this life.
But if we get our hearts lured away from the all sufficient Christ, anyone of us can fall.
Let's go to Second Timothy.
Chapter 4.
You may say, yeah, but I'm not a prodigal. I'm. I haven't gone into any of the depths of things like the prodigal son did. I'm not that bad. Well, maybe you have not thrown away the best part of your life like the prodigal son who is lured by the riotous and the immoral attractions of this world. But I want you to ask yourself.
Is there a part of my life where I am ignoring God and I am serving myself?
Satan knows.
What makes you work? He knows how you think he knows what you do. He knows what you like, and he knows what will bring you down.
Maybe Satan isn't present with you all the time, but he has his demons who know.
How you live and what makes you react.
And Satan is working hard to lure you with the attractions of this world.
And he starts with the little things that spoil your conscience. And if he can get into your conscience.
And mess your mind up. He can get you to fall into some sort of sin.
If Satan can't get you to fall into some sin, he can make you busy with the things of this life.
And He can accomplish the same thing by making you busy as he can. If he gets you to fall into sin, he can make your life.
Worthless.
For Christ.
There's another another prodigal found here in Second Timothy 4.
And he wasted part of his life.
And his name is Dimas.
Second Timothy 4 verse 10.
For demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed.
Dimas had a lot of potential.
He was serving the Lord, he was with Paul the Apostle Paul, and he was a help to the apostle Paul.
As I look around this room today.
I see a lot of potential.
A lot of valuable potential to serve the Lord.
Dimas.
He forsook the ways of God.
He went into the ways of the world.
And he is departed.
I had a lot of friends. I guess you could still say they're friends.
They used to be in fellowship.
But they got occupied with things in the world and success and self.
They have departed.
Had a problem.
We're not told exactly what his problem was.
But he got himself too busy in the world.
Maybe it was his. Maybe he went and found a job that made him too busy so he couldn't come out. So the Wednesday night meetings for the prayer and the reading meetings.
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And he got his priorities all messed up and he wasn't able to be there.
It's important to be at the reading meetings because that's where we are instructed from the word of God, by the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God has liberty to work in the meetings, we need to be there.
In the prayer meeting.
Is where we get our strength from, because the prayer meeting admits that we are weak. And when I am weak, then am I strong?
And so Dimas was too busy to come to the meetings.
Maybe started to rehab foreclosed houses.
Maybe he started to invest in the stock market.
Or maybe he started to play hockey and it made him too busy because he joined the leagues and he wasn't able to go and help the apostle Paul.
We don't know what Dimas's problem was.
I know what my problems are.
My weaknesses And you know what your weaknesses are and where you need to be strengthened.
I am not saying that is that it is a sin to rehab houses. It's not a sin to invest in the stock market. It's not a sin to play hockey. That's not what I'm saying.
But what I am saying is that it takes a commitment to follow the Lord and it takes a commitment to help the Saints.
And if we get too busy in our activities of the world?
We're not going to have time to put in to our commitment to the Lord.
If we get too busy with our activities in this world, our devotion to Christ will dissipate.
Let's go back to Luke chapter 15.
Luke chapter 15, verse 13.
And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
He wasted everything he had.
Don't be like the prodigal son. You have been given a wonderful inheritance of Christianity, a wonderful inheritance of truth from the word of God. You've been put into a position of blessing. Don't waste it.
The prodigal son wasted his life, He lost his life, and when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want.
This young man, he was looking to the world to satisfy his needs.
For his sufficiency. But the world is not able. The world is not sufficient to suffice your need for sufficiency.
The world cannot satisfy you. Oh, the world has a lot to offer you. We need to, uh, to make a living in this world. We need to do our job and the world and the Satan has. I mean, the world has a lot to offer you. But along the way the world also has a lot to distract you. And the world offers you money and power and freedom to do the things you want and when you want to do them. And you can make your own rules and and live by your own ideas.
The world offers and lures us with the parties and with the music and with the movies and the lottery and the lottery works on our praise, on our covetousness.
The world lures us with a sexual innuendos and the alcohol and the books and the school and the jobs.
In the videos and the Internet, in the iPods and the texting and the list goes on and on, the world has so much to offer.
The world takes up our time, the world takes up our energy, and the world takes up our money.
And along the way, the world destroys our spiritual discernment.
And it destroys our moral integrity.
In the world.
Can destroy our emotional stability.
Let's look at verse 15.
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And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
And he would have fain filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.
What a position this man was in now. He had all he could want, for he had his success in the world.
And this guy wasted his life on the pleasures of sin.
Now he was there with the pigs. He was eating like a pig.
He was in the filth. He wanted to eat the food that the pigs ate.
And now he has nothing left.
He wasted his life. He has nothing left for God.
He doesn't fit into the world anymore.
And he's destroyed his Christian testimony.
Back to that verse we started with.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
This young man, he lost his life.
And he lost the reward he could have had for service and faithfulness.
To God.
In our reading meeting, we had those verses about our reasonable service.
Young people, older people.
Be faithful to Christ. It is worth it. It is worth it. Verse 17.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my Father have bred, and enough to spare? And I perish with hunger, I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.
And I'm no more worthy to be called thy son.
Make me as one of Thy hired servants.
Here is the beginning of repentance.
He begins to see that the life choices that he made were sin.
You need and as you get into your life and you start being a prodigal and you waste your life and your time and your energies.
In this world, you need to see your sin as God sees your sin.
This man had an extravagant life to serve himself.
And that's one of the biggest temptations in this world is this extravagant life to serve yourself.
It's one we need to guard against.
And so you need to see your sin as God sees your sin.
Sometimes God will take you down down to the bottom of life before you are able to see your sin. Just like the prodigal son he had to go down to the bottom, down into the pig pen before he found.
And recognized his sin.
Maybe you need to be taken to the bottom of your life to see your sin.
Maybe you are getting to the bottom of your life.
But what do you do when you get to the bottom? Where do you go to for help when you get to the bottom?
I've heard of three people in the last couple of weeks who got to the bottom of life.
And they committed suicide.
They did not get help.
When you get to the bottom of life, you need to get help. The prodigal son. In our story, he turned to the father for help.
You need to turn to someone for help and when there's no one else to turn to.
You can turn to God. God is there.
God is always there.
God is the Father in our story.
I want to make an important point here.
In the process of these prodigal pleasures, we see that this young man's spiritual discernment was affected.
He thought. He thought that he could work his way back into favor with the father. Look what it says in verse 19.
The boy says I am no more worthy to be called thy son.
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Make me as one of the hired servants.
He thought he could work his way back into the favor of his father. He thought it might take away the guilt of the position that he had taken and run away and wasted his life. But doesn't matter how guilty you feel, you cannot work your way back into God's favor. God will not accept your good works. He will not accept your good intentions.
If you are doing your good works to gain favor with God.
Maybe you're not a prodigal.
But you are serving the Lord.
And you're doing a wonderful work.
But if you're doing that work in order that you might gain favor with God.
God can't accept those works.
God wants our fellowship. He wants our hearts. He wants a response to his love.
And God wants us to give him the glory and the worship and the honor and the praise and the Thanksgiving, all that's worthy to him, all that's due to his name.
Our fellowship with God is by grace alone. It's not by our works.
We cannot work to gain acceptance with God.
We just need to enjoy the position that we have with the Father.
Through the Lord Jesus.
Let's go to verse 20.
And he arose, and came to his father, But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him.
And had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
Oh, he was glad to see his son coming home. He was there, waiting for him to come.
He was waiting for the for his son to come for help.
God wants to help you.
His ear is waiting to hear your cry.
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. Psalm 3415.
Repentance is necessary, but if you are not repentant, God will not hear your prayer.
You may pray to him.
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you.
That he will not hear.
Isaiah 59, two.
Let's go to verse 21.
And the sun said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and I am no more worthy to be called thy son.
This man, he felt his sin, he recognized his sin and he was sorry.
When you have sorrow because you have offended God with your sin.
You must confess your sin.
You must repent from your sin.
There must be repentance. There must be confession. First. We need to confess and repent to God first. John 19 says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We need to get right with God.
Then we need to repent and we need to confess to the one that we have offended.
James 516 says confess your faults to one another.
And pray for one another.
That you may be healed.
The repentance must be real, and if there is going to be restoration, there must be evidence of a change in your life.
I want to make another important point.
A repentant person.
Will get completely out of the circumstances of his sin.
And he will stay away from that sin. He will stay away from it so he doesn't fall back into the same sin.
And so a repentant person will get completely out of the circumstances.
Of his sin and he will stay away from it. Verse 22.
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But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand.
Ensues on his feet.
We see the father did not accept the son's attempt of reconciliation by works.
The Father saw repentance. The Father saw faith.
The Father saw the righteousness of God in this repentant son, and so he says, bring the best robe. It's the robe of righteousness.
The best Rd.
We're told in Philippians 3, verse nine being found in him not having my own righteousness.
But the righteousness which is of God by faith.
The sun was clothed in the righteousness of God.
God sees the believer.
As perfect as his Son Jesus Christ.
And so the father says here in verse 22.
Bring forth the best robe.
Then he goes on to say put a ring on his hand.
To wear a ring, I guess they're not use my finger. I don't wear wear a ring but.
To wear a ring on a hand.
Was one of was a mark of honor and dignity, and here it expressed the favor and the affection of the father. The father never stopped loving his son. He never stopped looking for him to return as a repentant son, a repentant Sinner.
The repentant son did not need to do good works.
For him to gain the favor of his father because he was already in the favor of his father.
Because he was his son.
He wasn't able to show the favor to his son because he was.
In a bad way.
But you.
You are in the favor of God because you are his child.
The fellowship of the Father and of this Son was broken.
Through selfish sin.
But when there's repentance and there's confession, the fellowship can be renewed.
And the favor can be shown and bestowed upon the sun when he came back and confessed to sin.
Next the father says in verse 22.
Put shoes on his feet.
The servants, they would often go barefoot.
But the shoes were a symbol of freedom.
And the Father commanded them to put the shoes on him.
And this expressed his wish that he would not be treated as a servant.
But that he would be received as a son.
If there if there is a little bit of prodigal in you.
God offers you complete forgiveness.
God will take away the guilt of your selfish sin.
He will take away the guilt of you getting involved in the world.
If you will confess.
Your sin, repentance and confession. If we confess our sins, he is faithful. He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Let's go to Romans chapter 8.
I have a question for you.
Have you failed in your Christian life?
God will treat those who return to him with kindness and affection.
God will treat returning backsliders with mercy and with love.
As we see in this story, the Father dressed up his son in this manner and to be able to dress his son up with the best robe and the ring on his hand and the shoes on his feet. It was proof of the Father's love and affection, and the God wants to offer that love and affection to you if you return to him.
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He'll receive you.
With kindness Romans, chapter 8, verse 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Verse 38.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.
What's he saying here? He's saying that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God.
Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He's saying that you can never lose your salvation when a prodigal son, when a when a believer goes off in a prodigal life and living extravagantly wasteful.
Nothing.
Can separate you from the love of God.
You can never lose your salvation. Satan can't take you out of his hands. You can't take yourself out of his hands. There's nothing you can do to lose your salvation.
Let's go back to Luke 15.
Verse 23.
And bring hit her the fatted calf and kill it.
And let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be merry.
The fatted calf that was killed. It reminds us of the death and the judgment of the Lord Jesus that saved us in the first place.
It is on the basis of the death of Christ that we have been brought into fellowship with God.
It is through the death and the blood that was shed.
That the Lord Jesus can say that we the verse that we read in UH or or quoted in first John if we confess our sins he is faithful and just how can God be just to take away?
To to we confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How can God be just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from unrighteousness? It's because of the blood that was shed at the cross.
It never stops.
A believer who has fallen into sin does not need to be saved again.
The death of Christ is sufficient to cover that sin even after you are saved.
And so when the prodigal repented.
And he confessed he was able to immediately enjoy fellowship with the father.
And you too, You too, can be received back into communion with the Father.
If you have fallen into a life of sin, the Lord is waiting. He's ready to receive you.
If you come in repentance now, I want to make a point very clear here.
Some people think that because they will not lose their salvation, they can go on and do whatever they want in this world and be occupied with sin or anything else.
Because they can never lose their salvation.
If this is the way you think.
May I suggest that you are not saved?
May I suggest that you do not have eternal life?
Because the eternal life does not sink in that way. The eternal life is the life of Christ.
And you have that inside of you. It's not going to want to do whatever sin you think would bring you pleasure.
And so the eternal life.
Wants to live to please the Lord.
If you are not saved.
You can talk to me after the meeting.
If the Lord hasn't come by tonight, listen to the Gospel message.
Verse 25.
Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing.
And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.
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And he said unto him, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and he would not go in. Therefore his father came out and entreated him.
And he answering his father.
He answering said to his father. Lo, these many years I deserve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment, And yet thou never gave us me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots?
Thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
Man, what an attitude this guy has.
The older son he represents a proud.
Overbearing, bitter believer.
Who does not understand the love of God?
He has no grace and he has trouble showing love to his fellow believers.
The older son.
Is a Christian who finds fault with everyone that does not live up to the standards that he has set for everybody.
The older son is also a prodigal.
In the sense that he wastes his life.
In the mire of self righteousness.
An Unforgiving.
But with God.
There is forgiveness. There is forgiveness for each and every prodigal if you come to the Father.
In repentance, go back to Romans 7.
Romans 7.
The problem with the older son is that he did not realize how sinful the old nature is.
Each and everyone of us has an has the old nature, and when you're saved, you receive the new life, but you still have the old nature. You will never get rid of that old nature.
Until you die, or until the Lord comes. And so we each have that old nature within us. And so we need to realize how sinful that old nature is and stay away from it. Romans Chapter 7, verse 18.
For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Some of you.
May think.
That you would never grow up to be self-righteous and to look down on other Christians.
And perhaps you detest people who you think do that to you.
But it is possible for you to grow up and become that way.
If we never realize that there is naturally no good in US.
We in we are in danger of becoming like that older son.
Enclosing.
I want to encourage each of you to take a step of faith.
I want you to take up your cross and follow the Lord Jesus.
You may suffer for the Lord. You're not promised an easy life, but if you take up your cross, you may suffer for the Lord.
But are you willing to follow Christ anyway?
You have only one life to live.
Don't waste it by suffering in this world the way the prodigal son suffered.
It's only those things that you do for Christ.
That will survive the fire in the eyes of Jesus Christ.
At the judgment seat.
He that loveth his life.
She'll lose it.
But he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life.
Let's sing #21.
Have a father. We are from seeing our danger.
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Day where you know how to help us on your hands and we can't give you a lot of time. It's not time for anything. You need to have blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah crawl.
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