The Favorite Child

I'm one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove.

If I haven't met you, I want to say welcome to Church at the Grove.

I met a few people that are here for the first time, so we're always so excited.

Anybody's here for the first time, second time, and we we hope you are greeted with friendliness and warmth.

And uh more than anything, we want you to have an encounter with Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible.

And we're gonna we're gonna jump into the word this morning.

We're gonna be in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

If you want to go ahead and uh open up your copy of God's word.

While you're doing that, let me let me just mention a couple things that are that are that are pressing and important and exciting all at the same time.

Um and and you're gonna hear about opportunities, but I really want to push this one.

We um we are collecting supplies um for specifically for North Carolina.

Uh you know, we there's so many needs uh that we see uh North Carolina, Georgia, um even uh South Carolina, Augusta has been was hit very hard.

Um there there's just needs, tremendous needs in in lots of places.

South Georgia um was hit hard, but but we uh Bobby Richardson is is one of the uh younger guys in our church, and he and his wife, Meg, and uh Bobby just felt led to put together a trip, a relief trip.

And so we're gonna collect supplies.

Many of you have already gotten emails about supplies that we can collect over this week.

Uh you'll see some stuff begin to collect out in the lobby.

We can collect things through the week.

Bobby will leave on Friday and they'll take at least one trailer, but he's already prepared and set up to take an additional trailer if we have enough supplies.

And so just just look at that email and and you can bring stuff through the week and bring it up here.

And if you have questions, just ask, because there's probably things that we haven't necessarily thought of, but and we're still fleshing out, but excited that Bobby has a contact.

Is it Marion?

Marion Baptist Church, I believe, is uh it's it's in it's in North Carolina.

So we've got a solid connection with a ministry and a place where where things can be distributed, and so um, and so unless let's be in prayer that for, I mean, it it is a lot of devastation, pretty bad, um, as you still see.

And what I hear is when you look at those pictures, it does not do it justice to explain how severe it is.

The other thing I'm gonna ask you to do as a church family is to pray, is to pray, and and we, you know, we we went through a uh a generosity initiative at the beginning of the year, four generations.

Um we've we've entered into an agreement with uh a construction company, Steel Co.

based out of Covington here.

They're they're working on architectural plans, they're working on finalizing uh detailed plans, and then but the other what I'm asking you to do is to pray because we've got a meeting with a bank tomorrow.

Um uh some of our leaders have a meeting with the bank, and and it's one of those things where we just want the Lord to go ahead of us and to open up doors, help uh basically pave the way for us to get everything worked out.

I would, as a pastor, desperately love to have a groundbreaking before the end of this year.

And so um and so I'm asking you to pray.

Pray for that meeting tomorrow.

It's a lunch meeting, uh meeting, and then whatever they need from us following that lunch meeting, uh, we'll be here part of the time on the property.

And uh, and so pray.

You know how things work.

All of most of you have bought houses or you've you've had many of you have businesses and and you know how things are how important finances and economics are.

And so I'm asking you to pray.

Pray for that meeting.

So, how many of you would say, you know what, today, tonight, and tomorrow morning, Russ, I'll pray.

I'll pray with with you and the church.

Thank you, thank you.

So let's pray that God will open that door up and and and and the dominoes will fall and we can we can see some dirt move out here this fall.

That would be so awesome, wouldn't it?

So, um, all right, so Luke chapter 15, um, our second week in Luke chapter 15, you know, there are lots of studies that tell us that the birth order that we were born in, and depending on how many siblings we have, determines a lot of our mental and emotional makeup for our life.

Luke 15 · chapter mention Luke 15 · chapter mention

So if you are the older child, or if you're the middle child, or if you're the younger child, one of the interesting things is to ask people who come from families where they have multiple siblings, is to ask all and do a little research to find out which one of those children, which one of your siblings thinks that they were the favorite child.

So I'm one of three boys.

And so I've got an older brother that lives here in Monroe, his name's Butch, and and we call him Butch, and and then I have uh I had a middle brother that was between us, Eddie.

Eddie's in heaven with the Lord right now, um partying, you know, uh in a bigger way than he ever partied, you know, while he's down here on earth.

And and so so Butch is the oldest, Eddie was the the middle, and I was I was the baby, and I was the favorite.

And so there was actually a uh research done on this, and and here's what the research compiled.

The results 38% of Americans who are the youngest in their family say they were the favorite.

38% of Americans who are the youngest in their family say they were the favorite.

And all the older kids agree the younger is the favorite, right?

So I've got the three kids, and so I've got two boys.

My oldest is a boy, uh, middle is a daughter, youngest is a boy, and those two boys will tell you there's no doubt in their mind, they know who the favorite was, and it was their sister.

It was the sister, it was the middle sister, and and she probably would tell you, I I know I was the favorite, but but but that the two oldest ones will tell you that the baby Caleb is the favorite.

And so nobody would tell you that Josiah has ever been the favorite.

And he will he will he will tell you that as well.

I know he thinks he to he says he's the favorite now because he's the most responsible and has the best paying job of all of our kids.

Yeah, so um here's the uh uh research.

27 percent of those who were the oldest said that they were the favorite.

Only 20% of a middle child middle children, 20% of a middle child declared, and and and they probably just were deceived.

Middle children are not the favorite.

Never are, never have been, right?

Is that am I correct, Meg?

You face all the abuse, you catch it from the top, and you catch it from the bottom, and you end up getting blamed for everything.

And so uh that that's that's that's kind of funny.

And so we we we we laugh about this, but but the the truth is we have a heavenly father, and we are his children.

And I want to I want to I want to get up out of my chair because I want to emphasize what I'm about to say.

And then when you take preaching classes, they say when you're about to say something really important, you need to you need to stand up and and you need to gesture wildly, right?

This is important.

Can't do that, but with one arm right now, I want to tell you that.

Listen to me.

You are your favorite.

You are the father's favorite.

Every one of you need to know you are the favorite.

You are the favorite.

You're the favorite, you're the favorite, you're the favorite, you're the favorite.

See, over here, y'all are the favorite.

Every one of us.

That's that's that's really the what I want you to walk away with this morning is you are the favorite child.

You matter to God, and we're in this this passage, Luke chapter 15, as I shared last week, as we looked at um the parable of the lost sheep last week.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Just a short, short story that packed a powerful punch.

Today we're looking at the parable, what has traditionally been known as the parable of the lost son.

But it's really the parable of the lost sons.

We we traditionally have been taught that this this parable of the lost son is about the good son who stayed home, and it's about the bad son who left in rebellion.

But it's really about two sons who both equally are in need of God's grace.

And they both have an issue of sin that has to be addressed.

Charles Dickens calls this the greatest story that's ever been told.

We love this story.

We love the story of the prodigal.

We love the story, but it's a story that really should be called the prodigal God, not the prodigal son, or it should be called the prodigal sons, because it's about two sons.

So let's just dive in and read it and let's talk about it a little as we go along and and and read.

Verse 1 of Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.

Now, you know, if we if you've been here the last few weeks, if you want to, you can go back and listen or watch the previous sermons.

But we've been talking a lot about these characters that are mentioned in these stories that we've been reading and studying.

And you see, tax collectors, you see uh it describes notorious sinners, not just sinners, but notorious sinners.

Jesus, they they often came to listen to Jesus teach.

Not just religious people came to Jesus.

Here's what's so interesting about Jesus, and here's what's so beautiful about Jesus is Jesus hung out with the people that were the most unlike him.

They were the most unrighteous, they were notorious.

It says notorious sinners.

This is the New Living Translation.

It means you're a big sinner.

It means you're a serious sinner.

You take your sinning seriously.

You are taking it so serious, you are notorious for it.

And Jesus is hanging out with sinners.

He's hanging out with people that weren't religious, that weren't like him.

And you know what?

When he hangs out with them, I get the idea that Jesus likes them.

And I certainly get the idea that they like Jesus because they keep coming to hear him teach.

There's something about him.

Verse 2, this made the Pharisees and the teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people, even eating with them.

And so you've got sinners, notorious sinners, tax collectors, you've got the bad crowd.

And they are hanging out and they are following and they are wanting to hear the teachings of Jesus.

And then you've got the religious leaders, the people who knew the law and who were good at being good.

And they are following and listening to Jesus.

But we know because we've been teaching some of these passages where you see these Pharisees and religious leaders come up again and again and again, and very often what they're doing, rather than learning about God's grace, like we're trying to learn from God's grace, and these these sinners are probably wanting to follow Jesus because they are hearing a message of grace.

And so these Pharisees and religious leaders, they don't think Jesus is very holy and righteous because he's hanging out with these sinners and he's teaching them.

And so we see this.

We see that the beginning of this story where Jesus is hanging out with sinners and teaching, and the Pharisees and religious leaders are complaining because he's hanging out with these people.

But if you read through the whole chapter of Luke, chapter 15, you see these three stories.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

The parable of the lost sheep.

We talked about it last week, the parable of the lost son, and the parable of the lost coin.

It's the only place in the New Testament where Jesus tells three parables back to back to back.

There's places where he tells one parable, there's places where he tells two parables, and then here's the only place where he tells three parables back to back to back.

And if Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one, is teaching the word of God, and he teaches three parables back to back to back over two or over one, I'm gonna perk up my ears and I'm gonna listen with special attention to what he's teaching in these three parables.

And he's teaching us that we're all lost.

We are all like a sheep that has left the flock.

We're all like a coin that is so precious to a lady that she loses her coin and she tears the house apart until she can find that coin again.

And then we see the parable of the two sons.

And we go to Luke 11 to illustrate the point further.

Jesus told them this story A man had two sons.

The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die.

So his father agreed to divide the wealth between his sons.

And so we see this father, this heavenly father, this figure, this this um godlike figure in the story.

He's got two sons, and the first son asks for his share of the inheritance now.

And basically, what he's saying, it's a slap in the face, it's a punch in the gut to his father.

He's saying, I wish you were dead now.

And I don't, you know, whatever, who knows what the family dynamics are, but for whatever reason, he wants to leave, and he wants his inheritance and he wants to have it now.

And so the father decides to divide the inheritance both for the younger son and for the older son.

And so the younger son is choosing an entitlement attitude over gratitude.

And he's saying, I want my stuff now, and I want to be able to go do what I want to do now.

And so in verse 13, a few days later, this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all of his money, all of his inheritance in wild living.

And so the younger son packs his bag, and in a sense, he's saying, Dad, I reject you.

You're dead to me.

And so he's motivated by rebellion and his selfish desires.

And here's where he chases sin.

This is where sin gets a hold of him.

He chooses the path of self-indulgence.

I'm gonna take this money and I'm gonna party.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna drink it up.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go hang out at clubs.

I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna go live wildly.

That's how sin is pulling at him.

And so self-indulgence, he goes crazy with this.

Why in the world would this father, knowing what his son is about to do, why would he give him his inheritance?

Because the father knows that the son will never fully understand, appreciate, and know or experience the father's love and grace without freedom.

Listen to me.

Without freedom.

So God is a God that gives us.

Now he is sovereign and he is in control.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, he's all-knowing, he is everywhere at all times.

He is sovereign and he is in control, and his sovereignty reigns and controls our freedom, but he does give us a measure of volitional freedom.

Because he can't have a relationship with us if he forces us into a relationship without us choosing him freely.

And so the father doesn't want to force his son into this relationship.

He doesn't want to force love and grace upon him.

He allows him to leave.

This wouldn't have been his choice, but but and we don't know the time frame, we don't know the specifics and the details.

But we know that he he goes and he lives wildly.

We have to kind of think it's sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

I mean, that's that's I mean, that's let's just face the facts.

It's either a part or all of that.

And and it's pleasure, party after party, pleasure on top of pleasure, gratifying his desire, saying yes to anything that feels good.

And many of us have been there.

That's that's more my testimony than being the good son.

I didn't grow up knowing what it meant to follow Jesus, hearing the Bible taught.

I didn't grow up with those things.

My wife and I are very different.

She is much more the older son, and I am much more the younger son.

And so, man, this is a fun way to live until it isn't.

I've I listen, I've been down this path.

I know people that have gone down this path, and you come to a point, there's a breaking point.

Money dries up, addiction gets out of control.

Friends leave you, and they will leave you.

And and and what this younger brother is experiencing leaves him empty.

It's fun until it isn't.

Verse 14 about the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve.

Hunger is one of God's tools.

And when I say, and I don't just mean, I mean, he's literally probably starving for food, but there's also a hunger that we all have that drives us toward pleasure.

We think, we think that a pleasure or a relationship or or a drug or a drink or or whatever it is, those things are gonna fill the void, the whole.

But they just snap back to more brokenness, more hurt, more pain.

And so he persuaded a local farmer to hire him, the younger son, and the man sent him into the fields to feed the pigs.

By the way, there's a whole teaching there.

There's a whole path I could talk about.

He is a Jewish young man who now is feeding pigs, the most unclean animal in the Old Testament law.

And the young man, verse 16, became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him, but no one gave him anything.

When he finally came to his senses, thank God for coming to our senses.

Amen.

When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, At home, even the hired servants have enough food to spare, and here I am dying of hunger.

I will go home to my father and say, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.

Please take me on as a hired servant.

This younger son is spent.

He's out of money, he's out of hope.

And he's desperate.

And he begins to rehearse this speech.

Man, I can go home.

My father's employees are living better than I am living.

This whole freedom thing is not, it's not really set up to be everything I thought it to be.

And so he he rehearses this speech of repentance.

And it's a beautiful picture of repentance.

The son decides, I'm gonna quit heading in this direction and I'm gonna go back home to my father.

That's a picture of repentance.

Repentance is to do a U-turn.

It is to say, no longer am I gonna choose salvation or spirituality or my relationship with God based on my self-indulgence.

I'm gonna repent and I'm gonna come back.

My father may not accept me back as a son, but maybe he'll accept me back as a servant.

And he rehearses this speech he's gonna give to his father over and over.

And you know what he's hoping for?

He's hoping for some grace.

He's hoping for some mercy.

He's hoping that he can have something to eat.

He's hoping for possible, possible.

May we reconnect in our relationship.

But he rehearses this speech.

And as he comes closer to home, as he comes back to this direction of repentance, everyone would have known what a young son would have deserved if he had done and behaved the way that this son behaved.

He would have deserved to be executed.

The law, the Levitical law, if you go back to Deuteronomy and Leviticus, if a son, a child, runs off and claims his inheritance early, he at that point is guilty of one of the worst sins you can imagine.

And when he returns or when he is found, he will not be received well.

He will potentially face being executed by stoning.

And so as he approaches, as the religious leaders begin to see him making his way home, his father is on the front porch of their home.

He sees his son in the distance.

They know what's going to happen to the son if he comes home.

He's going to be guilty of a grievous sin and potentially stoned to death.

A son rejects his father, he leaves with his inheritance, he wastes his life, he's broke and a shame.

He returns and grovels, but it does no good.

He gets what he deserves.

They circle around this young man and they begin to throw stones at him.

Verse 20.

Look at verse 20.

So he returned home to his father.

Now I want you to listen to this.

And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming.

Now, this is the father of the son, but this father represents the heavenly father in the story.

His father saw him coming, filled with love and compassion.

Say those two words with me.

Love and compassion.

Filled with love and compassion, not disdain, not not not disappointment, not anger, filled with love and compassion.

He ran to his son.

He embraced him and kissed him.

Isn't that a beautiful picture?

Now there's more to this story than just what we're seeing in the story.

He said to his son, Father, his son said to him, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.

But his father said to the servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house, put it on him, get a ring for his finger and his sandals for his feet.

Kill the fatted calf.

Kill the calf we've been fattening.

We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life.

He was lost, but now he is found.

And so the party began.

Jesus gives us this beautiful picture of a son who is returning home, a beautiful picture of repentance.

It gives us the picture of the heart of the Heavenly Father.

This old man, this old father.

He lowers himself to run in a full sprint.

You didn't do that.

It was undignified for a grown man, an older man, to run in public.

It is still undignified.

Amen.

There's a lot of things that are undignified.

You go to a wedding, you go to a party, I mean, there's a lot of undignified things, but old men are not supposed to run.

Why is this father lowering himself to a place of becoming undignified to run?

Because he knew what Leviticus and what Deuteronomy had said.

If a child leaves and desires its inheritance and wishes that the parents were as good as dead, they would have faced being stoned when they returned to their home.

And so I don't know this for sure, but I want you to just kind of imagine with me.

This is one reason the dad sprints out, embraces his son, kisses his son because the people, the crowd had already started to gather.

They'd already picked up their stones.

And the dad embraces his son to stand in the gap between those that would carry out an execution and kill him and stone him.

The dad stands in between the son and those that would do him harm.

And the dad is giving us a beautiful picture of God's heart for the lost.

The story of the gospel, the story of Jesus is Jesus comes and he gives his life, he surrenders his life, and he is nailed to a Roman cross.

And in receiving that death and that punishment, he is standing in the gap between the Heavenly Father's wrath and what we all deserve.

And our forgiveness and our grace and our redemption.

Do you see it?

Do you see it?

So the Father embraces the Son.

He stands in between him and those stones and those weapons, those instruments of execution.

He stands in between to shield the son from the wrath that he deserved.

Rightfully so.

And so the Father says, Hey, bring the robe out to him.

Bring the best robes.

The sign that you are clean and you are righteous.

The pig slop will be covered up by this beautiful robe.

Bring it and put it on, my son.

Bring it.

Hey, bring the ring back.

He's exhausted his inheritance.

But you know what?

We're going to give him another copy of the checkbook.

And that's what the signet ring was.

It was the family stamp that says that he is not out of resources.

He now has access again to his father's estate.

Hey, put the sandals on his feet.

Sandals were reserved only for the biological children of the landowner and the owner.

All of the servants and the slaves were not, were typically barefooted.

And he says, bring the sandals and put them back.

He now is part of the family again.

He is given full sonship and allowed back.

And then the story of grace doesn't stop there.

Verse 25.

You've got all this activity with the younger son coming home and the dad celebrating with a party.

Then meanwhile, verse 25, meanwhile, the older son was in the field working.

The good son.

When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on.

Your brother is back, he was told, and your father has killed the fattened calf.

We are celebrating because of his safe return.

Why is he angry?

Said he was angry and wouldn't go in.

His father came out and begged him.

You know, we've always thought, we've been taught, this is a story about the good son and the bad son.

It's a story about the rule follower and the partier.

It's really a story about two lost sons, both enslaved to sin, both in desperate need of grace.

One son is wild and parties all of his inheritance away.

The other son is a good, well-behaved young man.

And he stays home and he does everything right.

And his younger brother comes back.

He should be overjoyed and rejoiced with his father, but he doesn't.

He's angry.

Why is he angry?

Because he's full of pride, because he's done everything the right way.

And when we do things the right way, we deserve our piece of the pie.

He's just as lost as the younger son.

And where the younger son's path of sin is self-indulgence, the older son's path of sin is self-righteousness.

I am good.

I'm well behaved.

I know how to say the right things in the Bible study.

I know a few Greek words, Hebrew words.

I know, I know enough that I should be able to say that I'm a good person.

And so he's angry.

He is in sin with that is fueled by self-righteousness.

And here's what he says.

All these years I've slayed for you and never once refused to do a single thing.

You told me to.

And all that time you never gave me one young goat for a feast with my friends.

Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf.

So those of us that want to major on our religion, this is the direction that will take you down when you believe that you deserve righteousness or right standing with God because you have changed or modified your behavior to meet the standard of the law.

Younger son represents, hey, just party, party hard.

Go spend it all.

Older son behaves right, behaves well, does all the right things.

Self-righteous.

Self-righteous.

Both of them are in need equally of God's grace.

And so the father begs the older son.

Verse 31, his father said to him, Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours.

We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has come back to life.

He was lost, but now he is found.

And so here's what I want to ask you.

And I want to be very direct, and I want to be clear that I am inviting you into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

God is inviting you, the Heavenly Father is inviting you, calling you back home.

And if you have lived wildly, and if you are squandering your inheritance, then the invitation is to come home.

Put your faith in Jesus.

Repent.

Receive salvation with joy.

Your heavenly father is so thankful, and you are his favorite.

You are his favorite.

But some of us are self-righteous, and we have grown farther away from God because we think we've behaved pretty well and we've lived good enough and we deserve a special place at the table with the Lord.

And some of us are in that path of self-righteousness.

And we need to humble ourselves and come in repentance.

We equally need repentance, those of us that are self-righteous.

So would you pray with me?

And whether you are caught in the sin of self-indulgence, or you are enslaved to a religious self-righteousness, Jesus stands and invites you to come and to place your faith in him.

And if your salvation is in question this morning, regardless of which camp you're in, self-indulgence or self-righteousness, my encouragement to you is to come and to put your faith in Jesus Christ this morning.

We're about to spend a few moments in response to this message.

We're about to spend a few moments in response to the presence of Jesus.

We're about to spend a few moments responding.

And my encouragement is for you to consider the depth of his love, the depth of his grace, what your response should be.

And if you don't know for sure that you have a relationship with Jesus, I want to encourage you.

During this song, you come to this altar or you grab somebody that you are with or that you know and you trust and you let them know, you tell them, I need Jesus.

I I need to put my faith in the Savior.

And I need to repent of self-indulgence and I need to repent of self-righteousness.

And I need to I need to throw myself desperate for God's grace.

So, Father, would you work in the hearts of those that are here this morning that maybe that truly need to have the assurance that they've put their faith in Jesus?

Father, we love you.

God, we thank you.

We give you this time.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.