Jeremiah 31:1-6; Luke 15:11-24
From the publication Christian Victory comes this great story from the life of the famous impressionist painter, Pablo Picasso.
The story goes that he wanted a wardrobe made from mahogany wood, but had a special shape and size for the wardrobe, which he wanted to put in a large room in his chateau in
Now, I don’t know if Picasso signed this sketch or not, but this story is a great illustration for people to recall when it comes to realizing who we are and how worthy we are in God’s eyes since it is His “signature” that is written upon us.
We saw last Sunday that experiencing the Breakthrough in Twenty-Ten that will lead us into a deeper, richer, more joyful, and a more peaceful relationship with God will come as accept how worthy we truly are to God. The relationship God had with us in knowing us in some way even before He formed us in our mother’s womb and prior to our birth is a fellowship that He desires to have continue after our death. We are so worthy that God loves us with an everlasting love as we see in Jeremiah 31:1-6.
His “signature” is upon us because He formed us, and because God formed us, we are worthy, priceless, and worth a King’s ransom….the ransom that King Jesus paid on the Cross so that through His blood we might be released from sin and death and continue the fellowship after our death that we had with God before we were formed.
If there was ever a parable from the lips of Jesus that reveals how worthy we truly are to receive divine blessing, love, salvation, and peace, it’s the story of the Prodigal Son. For this son experienced the mother of all breakthrough’s, but it happened because he came to understand whose “signature” was upon him and how worthy that “signature” made him.
If you look in the mirror when you go home, you’ll see the same “signature” on you. That’s why you are so worthy of the mother of all breakthrough’s as well.
Luke 15:11-24
The “prodigal” son is every person because every one has wasted away the inheritance our Father has given us.
When it comes to practical, witty, and timeless horse-sense, few could say it like the legendary Will Rogers. At one point,
If the truth be known, all of us have fallen into this pit at one point or another in our illustrious career as sinners and as saints. We’ve wasted and we’re wasteful, spending money on things we don’t want or need, often times to impress people we don’t like or just in trying to fill some sort of void in our own souls.
Because we are all wasted precious things we have inherited from our Father in heaven, then the Prodigal Son is not some fictitious figure in some parable. He’s US.
For you see, the word “prodigal” comes from a Latin word that literally means “wasteful.” And the word “squandered” in Luke is really the Greek word for “to waste”.
We are all prodigal sons and daughters in that we have all wasted in one form or another, the inheritance of blessings that God bestows upon us every day. Yes, we’ve wasted money…more than we would care to admit if you are like me. We’ve wasted how many years not knowing, serving, loving and worshipping the Lord. We’ve wasted time that could have been given to our
our spouse and our children. We’ve wasted opportunities to share the gospel, love the unloved, thank the ones we should thank, giving a compliment, or lightening someone’s load.
Now here’s the rub that keeps so many people from repenting and changing their lives….
We look at our wastefulness and take it as a sign of our unworthiness.
Isn’t that what the prodigal, wasteful son did? He looked at how he had wasted away everything that his father had given him and then he drew the conclusion: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” See that?
Wastefulness does not determine worthiness. If it did, none of us, not even Mother Teresa herself would have a chance of being saved by God’s amazing grace. If wastefulness determined worthiness, heaven would be empty and God’s heart would be eternally broken because everyone that He knew and then formed in the womb would never again be with Him.
Do not allow Satan or anyone else, yourself included, to convince you that your wastefulness is an indication of your unworthiness. No, it’s an indication of your need for repentance.
Breakthrough for some of you in Twenty-Ten will come in doing this one thing: ceasing to evaluate your worthiness by your wastefulness. Wastefulness is what you and I have done. It is NOT who we are…in the eyes of the One whose “signature” is upon us.
Luke 15:17-19,21
Breakthrough comes when we come to our senses and see our sinful state and our need to be “salvaged” from life’s “pig-sties,” but Satan will try to keep us buried under the feeling of unworthiness with a distorted view of our status with God.
When the prodigal, wasteful son looked around and realized that the servants in his father’s house had it a whole lot better than his life there in that pig-sty, the light bulb turned on. The NRSV says that “he came to himself,” while the NIV says that “he came to his senses.”
Any way you cut it, it’s still the same thing – he got it. He realized his condition would be a whole lot better off being a servant feeding his papa instead of a servant feeding these pigs.
His error, though, when he came to his senses, was that he still drew a wrong conclusion about his worthiness compared to his wastefulness.
Notice that when he came to his senses about his wastefulness and his condition, he drew the wrong conclusion about his worthiness and therefore his status in relationship with his father. He believed that he would have to come home with a lower, less worthy status.
He basically said to himself, “I’ll trade my sonship for servanthood.”
Satan will keep us from breaking through to a deeper, richer, closer, more joyful, and more meaningful relationship with our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ by trying to keep us from coming to our senses. He does not want the light to turn on in any of us. He wants to keep us in life’s pig-sties by keeping us convinced that our wastefulness precludes our unworthiness. And as long as I feel unworthy, I’ll never repent and be saved.
But if we come to our senses and start to head back home, he’ll try a new tactic. He’ll keep us thinking that we can determine and decide what our status will be in the eyes of the Almighty. “Woe is me. I’ll never be anything more than a servant. I’ll never be a son again as I was when God knew me before I was formed in my mother’s womb.”
Do you know how many of us and people “out there” are still buried on the weight of not just a feeling of unworthiness, but a feeling of not really being a son or daughter of God. And therefore, not really deserving of all the graces and gifts that God wants to give us.
Away with such thinking! It’s Satan that’s burying people under this weight.
Luke 15:20, 22-24
In telling this parable, Jesus informs us that we can breakthrough to new fellowship, joy, and praise when we embrace the Father who embraces us since He is the One who alone has the right and the power to define our worthiness and, therefore, our status with Him…forever.
In Genesis 2:19-20, we read these words: So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and the to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field…”
God gave Adam, and through Adam, God has given us the right and the power to give names, to every living creature, animal of the field, bird of the air, even on to rocks, minerals, and plants. As new species of are discovered, we give them names….even this Finfan Seadevil.
When a new baby is born, we give them a name, don’t’ we? God gave us that right and that power…to give names and define lifeforms.
But what God DID NOT give us is the right and the power to define ourselves and define our worthiness. Your worthiness, my worthiness, the worthiness of any person anywhere in the world cannot be defined by anyone but Almighty God. Why? Because HE formed us in the womb, He created us, and He established our worth and our status with Him as sons and daughters. No matter how far we travel into the “far country,” no matter how much of our inheritance we have wasted, no matter who bad we smell like a pig-sty, we are still God’s son or God’s daughter. We do not have the right or the power to legitimately redefine ourselves.
When I left home and went an hour away to Mount Union College, if felt like the “far county”, and frat parties confirmed those suspicions. But did I cease to be my father’s “son?”
After college, I traveled farther away from home and went to Eden Seminary in the far country of
Listen, no matter how far you fall away from God, no matter how badly you stink, you do not have the right or the power to define your status with God and or worthiness to God.
Isn’t that what this wasteful son tried to do? He said that he was not worthy any more of the status he once had so he decided to rename himself – “servant”?
When he got home, did his father accept this new definition of the relationship and the status of his son?
Absolutely not.
Satan is the one who will try to get you to do something that God has never authorized any of us to do – define our worthiness and define our status with Him.
No, He makes the call because He made you. His signature is on you, and no person, not even you, can change the fact that God defines your status with Him and your worth to Him.
Breakthrough in Twenty-Ten will come as you and I come to this realization. God sees us worthy, no matter how unworthy we see ourselves. God sees us as worth a King’s ransom, no matter how badly we have wasted it away. God sees us as His son or as His daughter, even though Satan tries to deceive us into redefining our worthiness and therefore our status and relationship to Him. When you and I accept this fact, no matter how badly we smell like a pit-sty and wasted the inheritance of time, talent, and treasure God has given to us, we will truly breakthrough into the fuller, richer, more joyful and praise-filled relationship with our Maker and Redeemer.
Take this message to people living in pig-sties, who truly want to come home to the Lord but feel that their worthiness has been defined by their wastefulness. No more. Go tell them the Good News that God loves them with an everlasting love.
