Luke 15: 1-24

Theme: Justification Part two

A CONDITION WORSE THAN DEATH

The room was warm, the bed was clean. And it was safe, something that she had not felt in some time. Mary, the woman working at the shelter, asked her why she was running. She did not have an answer. There was no abuse, no poverty, no overbearing parent. It was just pure rebellion and she would not go home, no matter what. Finally, Mary told her that "there is a condition worse than death, to be lost. And there is a condition better than life, to be found." She did not know what that meant. But, she was sure there are conditions worse than death and several times, in the last few months, she wished that she could die.

Sara was her name, but she could have been any of a number of girls. She had grown alienated from her father. Her mother had died when she was nine. Her dad had been good to her and provided all the things that she needed. But, she had grown restless. As she got older, she resented being told what to do and being treated like, well, like a nine-year-old whose mother had just died. He smothered her she thought.

When Sara turned eighteen, all she could think about was that she was an adult and she could do as she pleased. She stayed out too late, her father fussed. She intentionally came home drunk and he wanted to ground her. He took away her keys, after all the car was in his name. It was after that incident that she decided to leave.

Sara came to her father one night and said I want the things that mother left me, the jewelry and the money she had saved for me. It was as if he had expected it. He did not say a word, but with tears in his eyes, he gave them to her. And by morning she was gone.

Sara went off to the west coast. She sold the jewelry, her mother’s memories, and found a cheap room. The next day, she began to look for work. It took exactly two weeks to run out of money and she was desperate. At a coffee shop, she had met Monica who said she was going to be a movie star. They talked a couple of times. On this evening, Monica,said she could get her a job that paid thousands a month. All excited about it, she went with Monica to meet her boss. It was about an hour into the conversation that she realized he was a pimp. Slowly but surely she had descended to this. She had no choice, she had to eat.

Now, her body was broken. She was on drugs. Her pimp was looking to kill her. And she wondered, did her father still love her?

There is a condition that is worse than death, to be lost. The Bible says that we are most definitely lost. We are separated from God. And we broke the relationship, we rebelled against God. Last week we saw that Justification has a legal side, we are made right before God’s Law. But we need to understand that Justification also has to do with mending a broken relationship. If our sin makes us guilty before God’s Law, certainly our sin has broken our relationship with God. We have wandered so far from God that we are in a strange land, doing strange things and living in a condition that is worse than death.

Jesus came that we might be reconciled to God. He came to fix our broken relationship. In Luke chapter 15, Jesus zeros in on the matter of lostness. We were created to walk in relationship to God, as did Adam and Eve. That relationship is broken and the only one who can repair it is God. God passionately seeks us. Like the lost sheep, God goes out after us and seeks until He find us. Like the lost, coin, he will not let any obstacle get in His way but searches until we are found. But, this third parable, what does it mean?

A father had two sons. The focus is really on the father, not the one we call the prodigal son. But we might call him the prodigal Father. The word "prodigal" means to be recklessly extravagant, lavish, characterized by wasteful expenditure. How can this describe the father? We will see.

The younger son came to his father and asked for his portion of the inheritance. He might as well have wished his father dead. "I want what you will leave me, but since you will not die, give it to me now." After receiving his wealth, he runs off to a far off country to live it up.

Since it is Mardi Gras weekend, we can imagine something of the life he lived. He was popular, he had many friends who invited him to do all sorts of sinful things. Then, his money was gone. All of his "friends" left him. He soon discovered that the only person who ever really loved him was his father. He traded in his father for false friends and women who hung around long enough to spend his money. Now, he was alone, impoverished, actually living in a hog pen and eating the hog’s food. Have you ever raised hogs? Not a hog but a herd of hogs? They are nasty animals and the pig pen is not where you would want to eat your supper.

It was in the hog lot that he remembered the father he insulted, abused, and abandoned. All his father had ever done, was to be good to him. He raised him and gave him all that he ever wanted, even to the point of being extravagant. His father has lavished him with life and gifts. He never gave his father a thing. All he had done was to wish his father dead. Now, he realized that the only person who really ever loved him was his father.

It was a moment of pig pen clarity, here he was in the muddy pig pen, covered in pig manure while his father’s servants lived in relative luxury: a warm bed, a clean house, good clothes, and plenty of food. Maybe I can be my father’s servant. So, he made the long journey home. He wrote a speech, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son, make me as one of your hired men." (NASB)

He was almost home when the surprise of his life happened. His father came running to him! Apparently the father never stopped watching and waiting for his son to return. The boy, so dirty and smelly, began his speech, but he never finished it. His father passionately embraced him and interrupted his confession with commands to his servants. "Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him." "You, put the family ring on his finger and you put shoes on his feet. And bring out the fattened calf and let us have a feast. ‘For this son of mine was dead, and now has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’" (NASB)

What kind of father is this? One who loves his son. The son broke his relationship with his father, he sinned against him. Yet, the father justifies the son whom he loved, he makes him to be in right relationship with him. This is a picture of what God has done for us.

In the Bible, righteousness has as much to do with our relationship to God as it has with keeping the Law. "In the Old Testament, righteousness is a personal concept: it is essentially the fulfillment of the demands and obligations of a relationship between two persons. (Alister McGrath, Justification by Faith, 24) The most important relationship, the one undergirds all others, is our relationship with God. It was so important that it was defined by a covenant, a solemn pact with rules and obligations. This intended relationship with God is so primary that when we break it, God describes the breakage as an act of immorality and infidelity. And when we break our trust with God, we cannot restore it. Only the offended party, God Himself, can restore the relationship.

It is costly love that God lavishes upon us. We broke the relationship with our sin. But it is God who absorbs the suffering. Later, Paul would write, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them." Justification is a work of God alone. He reconciles us through the blood and death of Jesus upon the cross. God is passionate about us. He is like a man with a lost sheep who searches until he finds it. He is like the woman who lost her coin and leaves no corner unswept until she finds it. God is like the extravagant father who anticipates the day his son returns and restores him to full sonship.

All of us are runaways. And some has sunk as low as Sara. We can only hope that people like Sara swallow their pride and return home. We know what it is like to have broken relationships and to be reconciled. If you know that, then you know something of what it means for God to restore you to fellowship with Himself.

Yes, there are conditions which are worse than death and there are conditions that are better than life itself. When Christ leads us home that is best of all.