The Nature of Sin, Pt 8: Sin and Grace
Luke 15:11-32 11Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. 13“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. 14After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 17“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20So 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. 23Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. 25“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 31“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”
In the last several posts we have been talking about sin and its stunning lethality to our relationship with our Heavenly Father. And in our human perspective certainly that is true. People have been talking for millennia about our inability to do right. Paul, in Romans 7:15 says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” And Plato, who lived in Greece 350 years before Jesus, wrote about sin in one of his dialogues. He pictured the human personality as a “charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different direction. Reason was the driver, and spirit and appetite were the two horses. And here is spirit with its good desires on this side, and here is appetite with its evil dimensions over here. And each of them wanting to go in different directions”.1 I imagine we all resonate with Paul and Plato, and if no other option existed we might be tempted to give up.
Dr. Martin Luther King said once that “the worst sinner is the man who doesn’t think he is a sinner.”2 But there is another option albeit not of human origin. God was never surprised by his children’s struggle with sin. He understood we would have a daily struggle with this issue, and he offers a free gift as a solution. That gift is called grace.
After having received eternal life through accepting Jesus as our Savior, we still continue living now for the purpose of furthering the Kingdom. But we still have our propensity to sin, so we need grace to help us through our days. Dr. King explains grace well: “This is the meaning of God’s grace. As we stand amid the great examination of life, confronting all of the experiences of life, we stand writing our answers to all of the issues of life, but in all of our very being we flunk the exam; we make mistakes; we are not prepared. Our ingenuity is too weak, we are too finite to pass it. And yet God reaches out and looks at us in our tragic state and says to us, “If you will have faith in me, if you will be loyal enough to come to class, I will add a little to your examination so that you can pass and stand up amid life with all of the beauty and all of the glory of life, and you can get through.” And that’s the thing that brings us through life. That’s something that we don’t merit, that’s something that we don’t deserve, but that’s something that we so desperately need in order to survive and pass the ultimate examination of life, which lifts us from the seminary of life to the broad university of experience and eternal life. This is what God gives us, and it only comes through His grace, His free gift.”3
The passage shown is called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. On initial reading, we might be tempted to see a story about rebellion and reconciliation and to some degree it is. But it is so much more. This is a story of God’s grace in action. Many people look at the story and see a rebellious son who gets what he deserves and has the shocking bravado to come back home having totally embarrassed the family. The father has no obligation to take him back yet does so without hesitation. I would expect that everyone of us, at some time in our lives, lived the life of a prodigal child. But take a look at the father. Look at the love in his heart at seeing his son return. Imagine the widest of grins on his face! Understand the grandness of joy at the realization that the son, having been thought dead, is now found to be alive.
This is a picture of the heart of our Heavenly Father. He is saddened by our wanderings and disturbed by our sin. But when we turn from our wickedness, I imagine Him leaping for joy!
My friends, do not listen to Satan when he tells you that you are beyond hope. You are not! God only wants us to turn back to him, to abandon our old ways, and to seek reconciliation with Him. I remember back in the days, before I became a believer, I knew there was a God but had no relationship with the Son. Finally I got to the point of realizing my life wasn’t working. If that is where you are now, turn to Him through His Son. You will see that widest of grins!
1 King, M.L., (1960prox). Retrieved from Man's Sin and God's Grace | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute (stanford.edu). p383
2Ibid, p386
3Ibid, p388