God Our Savior
"There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father,
'Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.'
And he divided his property between them.
Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country,
and there he squandered his property in riotous living.
And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country,
and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country,
who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
But when he came to himself, he said,
'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread,
but I perish here with hunger!
I will arise and go to my father,
and I will say to him,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
I am no longer worthy to be called
your son.
Treat me as one of your hired servants."'
And he arose and came to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion,
and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
And the son said to him,
'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before you.
I am no longer worthy to be called
your son.'
But the father said to his servants,
'Bring quickly the best robe,
and put it on him,
and put a ring on his hand, a
nd shoes on his feet.
And bring the fattened calf and kill it,
and let us eat and celebrate.
For this my son was dead,
and is alive again;
he was lost, and is found.'
And they began to celebrate.
Now his older son was in the field,
and as he came and drew near to the house,
he heard music and dancing.
And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.
And he said to him,
'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf,
because he has received him back safe and sound.'
But he was angry and refused to go in.
His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father,
'Look, these many years I have served you,
and I never disobeyed your command,
yet you never gave me a young goat,
that I might celebrate with my friends.
But when this son of yours came,
who has devoured your property
with prostitutes,
you killed the fattened calf for him!'
And he said to him,
'Son, you are always with me,
and all that is mine is yours.
It was fitting to celebrate and be glad,
for this your brother was dead,
and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"
(Luk 15:11-32)
(Preacher turns and looks at his son sitting in the church pew and asks him to rise.)
Isaac, let me ask you a question about this parable.
Why did that father run to meet his son and welcome him home?
"Because he loved him; because he was his son."
Hmm. Well, let me ask you another question. Might the father have seen the son coming home in really magnificent clothing and thought, "Oh, what a sharp dressed young man - I'll run out to meet him" ?
"No - the young man did not have wonderful clothes on - he was in rags. His father said to bring the best robe and put it on him - and to put shoes on his feet - that tells you he was still in his rags when he got home."
Okay. Well. I see. But how about this - perhaps the father had heard what a fine, upstanding reputation the son had, and thought in his heart, "What an honorable young man I have for a son - I'll go welcome him home."
"No - that wasn't it either - the son spent his inheritance with RIOTOUS living.
He had not lived honorably."
Hmm. I guess so. Okay then - right. Well one last idea. Perhaps the older brother saw the young man coming home and ran to his father and said, "Oh, father, please won't you have mercy just this once - it would be so good to have my dear brother home. Can't you find it in your heart to have mercy?" You know - twisted his arm and pressured him into showing mercy against his own will.
"No. The older brother hated the younger brother - and was angry to find out that he was come home and received with joy."
Alright then, alright. I give in. Why again was it that the Father ran to meet his son?
"Because he was his son, and he loved him."
Yes.
Because he was his son,
and he loved him.
Thank you Isaac, you may sit down.
You are a good sport for letting me put you on the spot like that.
God is a Savior.
Jesus told this parable of the prodigal son because He wanted to show us the heart of His Father.
God is a Savior - at heart.
In God's heart he wants to see His children turn back and be saved,
just like that father in the story wanted to see his son turn back and come home.
God is a Savior at heart - because God is a Father at heart.
God is a Savior at heart.
He doesn't save us because of the fine clothes we wear.
He is no respecter of persons.
Nor does He save us because we do such great things.
The prophet Isaiah saw that all our righteous acts are as "filthy rags" before Him. (Isaiah 64:6)
God wasn't waiting for some golden age of human enlightenment to send Christ.
While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Man was in the middle of his everyday lifestyle of crime when Jesus came.
And what were we doing when God was in the middle of atoning for us?
We had a hammer in one hand and a spike in the other, spit in our mouth,
and thorns ready to press down onto God's innocent, and only child.
To think that God saved us because mankind somehow deserves to be saved
is to join those who spit in the face of Jesus.
It is to say to Him that His agonizing death was not necessary - useless,
because we were righteous all along.
God didn't save us because of some external factor,
but because of what was in His Heart from eternity.
God looked upon the wretched world, crawling with colonies of alien sinners,
and felt unspeakable, unthinkable compassion -
and gave up His heart of hearts to redeem us.
God is a Savior at heart. To Him be the Glory.
God is a Savior at heart. It wasn't someone else's idea.
We have a saying that who you are in public may be a show;
but who you are in secret, when no one else is looking -
when you are alone with your thoughts
is who you really are.
Well, there was a time when it was just God.
Only God is from eternity.
There was a time, before the foundation of the world, when nothing existed but God.
God was alone with His thoughts.
God beheld before hand what He would create.
He knew He was creating a world in which
man could freely choose to love Him;
and freely choose to hate Him.
He knew that if man chose to hate Him -
that man would become a curse in the creation.
God beheld something else.
He beheld what it would cost Him to save man, were he to freely choose to become such a curse.
He knew the depth
and unspeakable, unthinkable sacrifice it would be
for God, Who cannot sin,
to become Sin; (2Corinthians 5:21)
for God, who is blessed from eternity,
to become a curse for us. (Galatians 3:13)
God knew it all,
and He was alone in His thoughts -
-and He chose, freely,
of His own will -
-from His heart of hearts-
He freely chose to give every last thing - every drop of everything it took to provide a way for us.
He knew that He was going to wholly and completely give of Himself
without restraining anything we needed, no matter how costly.
This was all before He created anything.
"Eph 1:4-5 ...He chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of His will,
When did He choose us?
After a few thousand years of watching to see if we would start shaping up?
No.
He knew what He was going to do b e f o r e the foundation of the world.
Christ is the Lamb who was also foreordained before the foundation of the world, 1Peter 1:20,
slain from the foundation of the world Revelation 13:8
to bring us the promise of eternal life, which Paul says was "...promised before the world began" Titus 1:2.
God did not wait on our performance.
He knew what He was going to do before you or I or anyone or anything was there to talk Him into it! This was His idea. Jas 1:18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth...
It was the desire of His heart to save us.
God is a Savior at heart.
God is a Savior at heart.
Now I need to make a second point - a counterpoint.
God is a Savior at heart;
but Satan is a deceiver at heart. Jesus said that he is the father of lies.
Joh 8:44 You are of your father the devil,
and your will is to do your father's desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning,
and has nothing to do with the truth,
because there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks out of his own character,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father represents God the father.
If we were to represent Satan,
he might be a wealthy neighbor of the prodigal son - in Sin City.
He sees the boy is getting desperate to go home,
and stops by to give him some friendly advice, warning him,
"Don't go home - in those rags!
Your Father has heard all about the kind of life you live here
He never wants to see you again.
You have openly shamed your family name.
But do not lose hope;
I have a program for young men like you,
where I can help get you cleaned up -
-get you a job, help you into some respectable clothes,
give you some dignity and a fresh start;
and then,
when you are all cleaned up and dressed up,
when you are respectable again -
you can go home to your father on your own terms -
and he'll have to take you back
because you will be as righteous and upstanding as he is.
It won't be easy, and it will take time and hard work,
but I can even make you more upstanding
than that pretentious older brother of yours."
So the young man stays behind in sin city and tries to get himself cleaned up.
His rich neighbor teaches him to balance out all his evil deeds
by doing endless acts of righteousness,
so that he can be respectable again -
so he can undo what he has done -
so the shame will go away.
So he can go home and face his father.
But his father, was all the while hoping desperately to see him -
and would have run to him -
and flung his arms around him, cried and kissed him for joy -
no matter the rags on his boy.
All the while, the best robe was already waiting for him at home;
shoes for his feet;
a ring for his finger - to say - '"You are my son."
The devil is subtle, and has created myriad religions of human merit
which teach men to go about establishing their own righteousness
so that they can merit going home to God.
The Apostle Paul, who was himself involved in such a religion as a Pharisee -
who were like the spiritual "Marines" of their day - [ The Few, The Proud - The Pharisees! ]
wrote:
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
(Rom 10:3)
Christians can fall prey to this same deceit.
Why do we do good works?
We do what we do because God has saved us, not in order to merit salvation or balance out some evil deed.
It is all too easy to project the way things work in this world up into heaven.
In this world, a student can balance out a bad grade with a good one,
(at least to some extent!)
A beginning framer who bungles some studs in his first week will promise himself that next week he is going to swing that hammer like a pro. He is going to make up with fast, efficient work, the slow, bungled work in his first week. He feels the need to be able to hold his head up keenly.
We have a system of thinking in this world that we project up into the heavens.
Man writes it between the lines of his Bible,
and he forgets that
God is a Savior at Heart.
God is a Savior at Heart - and wants us to be saved.
We don't have to establish our own righteousness.
Satan is a deceiver purveying a system of lies about God.
God already freely chose to share His personal Righteousness with us.
Look up into the heavens as they declare the glory of God
- the awesome Creator behind it all
- burning stars that furiously churn with power
- unspeakably vast galaxies suspended as uncountable diatoms in the universe.
The Lord God Almighty desired in His Heart of Hearts
to share His Righteousness with those who would receive Him.
Because He already freely gave us His whole heart and saved us, we freely give our whole heart.
We don't do it to make Him love us; "we love Him because He first loved us." (1John 4:19)
Don't do it in order to be loved.
You are loved anyway.
You are loved already.
The Father loved the world before it ever knew Him.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.
(Joh 3:16-17)
And now, as a Christian, as a child of God, Jesus affirms God's love for you in a very special way:
(Joh 16:27) for the Father himself loves you,
because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
You are loved already. God has already provided the thing Satan wants you to try to provide for yourself.
for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God'"
(Luk 4:2-4)
In God's good time, He was going to provide food for Jesus.
Satan tried to tempt Jesus to take matters into His own hands
and use the power God had given Him to provide for Himself.
But Jesus never used that power for His own comfort.
Read through Jesus' life and you will see Him tired at the end of long journeys, t
hirsting and hungry - exactly as you or I would suffer.
He only used the power His Father gave Him for the needs of others.
For His own life, He waited on the Providence of God.
He did not try to provide for Himself what God had already decided ahead of time to provide for Him. He waited upon God, and God fed Him.
God wanted to feed Him; God wanted to sustain Him.
But Satan is a deceiver, and tried to wedge into Christ's armor the idea that He had to provide for Himself what God was not - for what ever reason - willing to provide for Him.
God is a Provider; God is a Savior at heart; but Satan is a deceiver at heart.
Satan tells lies about the heart of God. Throughout history Satan has promoted deformed and degraded views of the heart of God, to break down the hope of man.
The system of appeasement is another enslaving view of God. We see it throughout history and to our present day. It says that, fundamentally, god is like a tyrannical child who cannot get over his bad mood unless you appease him.
The Greeks invented gods who were known for their caprice and sudden rages, and could be calmed by appeasement. The Romans borrowed many such gods from the Greeks, and went on to make gods of their own emporers, (who were usually only too happy to oblige them) who's wicked whims had to be appeased upon pain of death. The self-proclaimed god Caligula wanted his horse made a priest. Appease him. Nero liked to compete as a horse racer, he liked to act and make up poetry. He was not particularly gifted in any of these areas, but - appease him, let him have the victor's crown anyway. What ever you do, don't make him mad - he might just burn down Rome. Whim and caprice characterized a great host of gods who, like drunken fathers - had to be tiptoed around for fear of sending them off on a raging fury of some kind. These were the gods of appeasement. (Israel also, at times had to live in fear of God; but that was because they chose to live in an ungodly fashion - which God plainly told them - and not because He shared the caprice of the idols.)
The Ammonites, Edomites and Moabites worshipped Molech- a man with the head of a bull
- who had to be appeased by putting babies into his burning arms."
"...Molech was worshipped in Carthage as well,
where the nobles began to buy children
for the purpose of sacrifice
or to raise servant children for this purpose
instead of offering up their own.
When Carthage was sacked in the third century BC,
Diodorus related in his Universal History that nobles believed their city had been sacked because they had displeased Moloch by offering slave children in place of their own children.
To appease Moloch the rich families of Carthage brought their children to the priests where two to three hundred were put into the burning arms of their god.
Appease him; appease him at all costs.
Perhaps he will be merciful and not kill us all.
The practice of appeasement is still practiced to this day.
In the Hindu religion, there are many gods to appease.
AP Nov 2, 2008 MOUNT BROMO, Indonesia - Indonesian legend has it that six centuries ago, a princess hurled her youngest child into a fiery volcano to appease mountain gods who had granted her fertility. Today thousands of pilgrims flock to Mount Bromo on East Java each year to offer the spirits food, live animals and money and ask for prosperity and health. Bromo, a 7,641-foot volcano, is one of Java's most popular tourist attractions.
But God says, Luk 12:Luk 12:24; 27-32
24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! (27) Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these...
(28) But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
(29) And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried.
(30) For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
(31) Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
(32) "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
God knows we need these things; you don't have to bargain with Someone Who already wants to bless you. Just turn your back on the world and come to Him. Believe Him and turn back.
KATHMANDU (Reuters) Sep 5, 2007 - Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday. Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem. The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said. It is common in Nepal to sacrifice animals like goats and buffaloes to appease different Hindu deities.
In one state in India where the rains are failing, " supporters of the ruling Congress have taken to performing special pooja and organizing inter-religion conventions to appease the rain god."
I mean no disrespect to the people of India who practice the Hindu religion - but God does not require appeasement of any kind. He needs nothing.
"If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.
(Psa 50:12)
God was whole and complete and without any needs - totally and eternally blessed - before there was anything. All things that exist are from Him; He sustains them; they do not sustain Him.
Act 17:28 for "'In Him we live and move and have our being'
God requires sinners to repent and turn back to Him; but this is not to appease Him; it is for the sake of the sinner who will perish otherwise. Your evil cannot hurt God; nor can your good make God more blessed than He is. God commands you to turn back because you and you alone shall bear the consequences of your actions.
If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scoff, you alone will bear it.
(Pro 9:12)
God does not save us because He needs us for His own selfish requirements of existence. He does not save us because, without us, He would not be able to provide for Himself in eternity! He saves us because we are dear to Him. A father reaches out to help his children without a thought of whether or not they are necessary to get him through the winter. A father loves his children because they are his. He can take care of His own needs. He has much leftover and to spare to take care of them as well.
Satan is a great deceiver - constantly implying things about the heart of God to distance God's children from Him; to make God's children afraid to return home; or to make them return home to someone who is not at all like their Father. Sadly, many accept a substitute god - who must be appeased; who must be entertained; who must be tip-toed about upon eggshells; who is capricious, cruel, and who's character is no better than that of a petty tyrant - who does not deserve any praise from any man - but deserves to be buried and forgotten.
Would that man would bury the gods and appease them no longer.
Would that we were rid of our gods.
Oh that man would look to God and behold a Savior;
behold a Father,
and turn back from the brink of destroying himself.
God is a Savior at Heart.
Earlier this year, on August 25th, a 39 year old man was out on the lake with his nine year-old son and his seven and his five year-old daughter. Suddenly his five year-old daughter fell over the side of the boat into the lake water. Immediately he jumped over board into the water to reach her. Mysteriously, soon after entering the water, his strength began to fail markedly. He reached his daughter, and as the boat was drifting away, he summoned all his strength and heaved his little girl up out of the water and into the boat. But he himself did not have strength to hold on, and he slipped down beneath the water and vanished out of their sight.
Let me ask you fathers here today - if your little girl or little boy was struggling for his life in the water - and I were to hold a stopwatch in my hand and press the start button the moment you realized what was happening - how far would the red hand tick before you had made up your mind what you were going to do? I think it doesn't take any time to make up your mind - I doubt the red hand would move before you moved. In an instant you would be moving towards your child - you would be - in each instant - doing everything in your power to reach your child. You would likely not even assess yourself to determine if you were even capable of saving the child. This kind of story is not hard to find if you search a news archive - Father dies trying to rescue son. The man did not go through a process of deciding if he was going to be able to make it through the ocean waves or not.
One of the blessings of being given children, is that when God makes a man a father, He gives him the opportunity to have a very special insight, deep into the heart of God. God is a Savior, and God is a Father, and these two facts are very closely tied together. Never let Satan deceive you into believing that God is not ready, in a heartbeat to receive you - just turn back and come home.
Lastly, let me say that there is another very deep moral to be drawn from the parable of the Prodigal Son - and that is to see how out of tune the spirit of the Older Brother is with that of the Father. It has been said that it is a good thing that the Prodigal Son met the Father before he met the Older Brother; because the Older Brother would have been so hard and cold and unforgiving - so indifferent to the pathetic state of his brother, that he would no doubt have sent him away again without the merest sign that there had once been a time when this young man had belonged there at home. In church, we need to pray that people who return to our fellowship meet the Father before they meet the Older Brother.
If you love God; you can't stand by and watch His lost children perish.
You can't go on withholding forgiveness from your wife or your husband - from your brother in law or your mother in law - from your parents or your children. You can't be pushing a drowning child of God under the waters with one hand and lifting the other up in salute to Him. You can't be that indifferent and uncaring older brother. You can't just stand there and watch a soul drown in despair and hopelessness. You have to do something if you love God! The Love of God and our Love for God compels us!
The Telegraph reported in 2007
Two Police Community Support Officers did not intervene to stop a 10-year-old boy from drowning because they were "not trained" to deal with the incident, a senior police officer said today.
The PCSOs stood at the edge of a pond at a Wigan beauty spot as Jordon Lyon
got into trouble while trying to rescue his eight-year-old step-sister Bethany Ganderton.
Two fishermen in their 60s jumped in and managed to save the girl, but the officers, who arrived at the scene shortly afterwards, did not attempt a rescue, deciding to wait until trained officers
arrived.
At the inquest into his death today the boy's distraught parents demanded to
know why more effort was not made to save their son.
Anthony Ganderton, the Jordon's stepfather, said: "I don't know why they didn't go in. I can't understand it. "If I had been walking along a canal and seen a child drowning I would have jumped in. You don't have to be trained to jump in after a drowning child."
God cannot and will not understand people who stand by indifferently and watch others who are only an arm's length away - perish. He will not excuse indifference - may we confess it and address it before Him and ask Him to take it out of our hearts. As Christians we have access to good training on evangelism. And there is nothing wrong with good training - but what we need even more than training - is heart. We need a heart to care for people in trouble. We need the heart of the Father for the lost so that we can't just stand there and do nothing while someone slowly vanishes beneath the waters of this world. Dive in! In His humanity, Jesus asked His Father to take away the cup of the cross from Him; but that His Father's will be done, not His own. He did not want to go through with it in His flesh. But the heart of the Father beat within Him, and God's love compelled Him forward. God's pity and compassion compelled Him forward! It is the heart of the Father that beat in the heart of our Savior. The Lord could not be indifferent to our plight.
He had to act. Love demanded He act. He expects us to act. He has the right to expect us to yield up our will and reach out and help!
On the last day the Lord will address indifference forcefully and finally:
"Then he will say to those on his left,
'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,
naked and you did not clothe me,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'
Then they also will answer, saying,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison,
and did not minister to you?'
Then he will answer them, saying, '
Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it
to one of the least of these,
you did not do it to me.'
And these will go away into eternal punishment,
but the righteous into eternal life."
(Mat 25:41-46)
If you love God; give Him what He wants. He wants to see His children saved. You are a part of His plan to save souls. Whether you feel you have received adequate training or not - whether you feel it is your personal strength or not - no matter what you think about you - have a heart and help - reach out and help - dive in and help.
If you are not saved this morning, I want to plead with you on behalf of my Father in Heaven - He wants you to come home. Come home. Turn away from what ever you have in this world and come to Him. The fine reputation and acts of righteousness that you think you have to have before you can come home - are all waiting for you there. The finest cloak of righteousness - God's Own righteousness awaits you at home. Jesus was made a curse for us - He was made to be sin for us - so that we could have His righteousness. Repent of your sins, confess the Lord, and be crucified, buried and resurrected with Him in the waters of baptism. (Romans 6)
-Aiden Humphrey
