Lon Solomon Ministries
People Jesus Met Part 23
I wonder if we have any Boston Red Sox fans here, do we? Well, I don't blame you for not being many of you. But anyway, you may remember if you are a Red Sox fan, or maybe even if you're not. About 15 years ago, the Red Sox had a big slugging first base but named Mo Vaughn. And one day while the Sox were playing in California, Mo Vaughn got a call from Boston Children's Hospital about a young boy named Jason Leader who was dying of terminal cancer. Jason was depressed because it was his 11th birthday, but he wasn't able to go home because of his illness and spend it with his family. And so some folks at the hospital knew he was a big Mo Vaughn fan, and they called Mo to see if maybe he would be kind enough to give Jason Leader a phone call. Well, he did. And as he could finish the phone call, he said, hang in there now. He said, I'll try to hit a home run for you tonight, which, in fact, he did. When he got back to Boston, Mo Vaughn had Jason join him one day at Fenway Park. And Time Magazine said, and I quote, "The doctor's postponed a scheduled round of chemotherapy because they wanted Jason to be strong for that day." His dad said Jason was a little tired, but he didn't seem tired when his pal, Mo, signed some baseballs for him. And he didn't seem tired when Vaughn grabbed his hand and took him for a walk. "We're going into the locker room to see the guys," Mo told him. "The press were told that they were not invited. This was a moment for Mo and Jason only." Time Magazine continues at one point. Someone handed Mo the ball that he had hit for a home run in California, and he signed it to Jason. "Stay strong, my friend," signed Mo Vaughn. Well, the next year, when Jason's leader died, Mo Vaughn actually took the day off from playing and went and served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral. And you know, when I read this, I thought, I don't know for sure whether Mo Vaughn is a Christian or not. But what I do know is that the kind of compassion that Mo Vaughn showed this frail little boy is the very way that God wants us as Christians to live. And this is what we're going to talk about today. We're in a series entitled People Jesus Met. And today, we're gonna talk about the prodigal son's older brother. Actually, the prodigal son's brother was not a person Jesus met. He was part of a story that Jesus told, but Jesus told this story to some people that he met. And so we're gonna meet those same people. We wanna try to figure out why did Jesus tell them this story, and then we're gonna bring all of that forward and talk about, well, what difference does that make to you and me? So that's our plan. Luke chapter 15 is our passage. And here we go at verse one. Now, many tax collectors and sinners were flocking to Jesus to listen to him. But the rabbis began to grumble and say, "This man welcome sinners." And he even eats with them instead of having compassion on these needy people and being glad that they were repenting and they were returning back to God, the rabbis resented them and the rabbis despised them. And it was in response to this hardness of heart on the part of the rabbis that Jesus goes on in Luke 15 to tell three stories, all of which have the very same point. And that is that God cares about people. He cares about them deeply and he cares about them tenderly and he cares about them compassionately. And the third of these three stories was the story that we know as the prodigal or the wasteful son. Let me review the details of that story for all of us. There were two brothers and the younger brother leaves home with his inheritance, goes off and wastes it all in wild living and then ends up broke and living in a pig pen where the Bible says he comes to his senses and he repents and he decides to get up and go home to his father. So his father, when he saw him coming from a distance, ran to meet this boy and he threw his arms around this boy and he hugged his son and he kissed his son and he welcomed his son back into the family. He restored his son and then he decided to throw a big gala party and invited all the neighbors and the relatives to come celebrate his son being home. Now so far, in Jesus' story, we can identify the players. The prodigal son, of course, represents all the tax collectors and the sinners that verse one of this chapter said we're flocking back and repenting and coming to Jesus. And of course, the father in our story represents God who always greets repenting sinners with his arms and his heart wide open. And you know, Jesus could have ended the story right there and it would have been a beautiful story and a very powerful story, but remember what was the eagis? Remember what precipitated this story in the first place? It was those hard, harded rabbis who had no compassion, who had no pity, who had no joy about returning sinners and so enter character number three, the prodigal son's older brother. Here we go, verse 25. Now his older son was out in the field and when he came home, he heard the music and the dancing. I mean, the older brother was right where you would expect the law of abiding, obedient, dependable child to be, he was working. So he comes dragging in at the end of the long day and he hears partying, coming of course from the party for his younger brother, but since he is dirty and sweaty and hot, he doesn't dare go into the house himself before changing clothes, verse 26. So he called one of the servants out and asked him what was going on. And the servant replied, your brother has returned and your father has killed the fat and calf because he has your brother back safe and sound. So the older brother became angry and he refused to go into the house, go in and celebrate the return of his younger brother, the one who had squandered so much of the family fortune, the one who had left him there by himself to do all the work, the one who had lived in debauchery and defamed of the family name, not on your life was he going in there. Verse 28, so his father came out and pleaded with the older brother. But the older brother said to him to his father, look, he said, all these years I've been slaving for you. I've never disobeyed any of your orders and yet you never gave me even so much as a goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours, notice not my brother, when this son of yours who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes comes home, you kill a fat and calf for him. Look here, folks, can we all see this, that what the older brother really needed was not a change of clothes but a change of heart, can we see that? The older brother looked great on the outside, he was obedient, he was respectful, he was law abiding, but on the inside something was terribly missing. I mean, here was his little brother, his inheritance is all gone, his life is bloodied and beaten up by sin, he's just limped home on his very last leg and was his elder brother glad to see him back? No, or was he touched at all by his younger brother's pain? No, did he have any pity on this wounded and needy human being, not one speck, his heart was as cold as a slab of granite, do we all see this because this is the salient, this is the key point in the story, do we see this? Hello, yes, okay. Now, if in this story the prodigal son, it represents all of the tax collectors and sinners who were repenting and coming to Jesus and if in this story the father represents God in his mercy and in his forgiveness, who do you think the older brother represents? Well, of course, he represents all those rabbis from verse two who were grumbling and complaining and showing no pity whatsoever on all these returning sinners, verse 31. Then the father said to the older brother, my son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours, but it is right that we celebrate and rejoice because your brother was dead and now he's alive again. He was lost and now he's found. What does the father say to the older brother? He says, look, son, he says, I've been good to you. I haven't held out on you. I love you, but you know what? I love your brother too. And it's right that we're partying and it's right that we're celebrating because this brother of yours, he was dead and lost and sin and now he's back. And so very gently, the father pleads with the older brother and says, please, son, won't you come in to the party? Please, son, won't you have some pity on your younger brother? And here the story ends abruptly with the door open and the father pleading and the question hanging, what will the older brother do, but Jesus never tells us? You say, yeah, why not, Lon? I hate that when somebody leaves a story like that. Well, I do too, but why didn't Jesus do any more than this? Well, the answer friends is because the people who were going to write the end of Jesus' story were the rabbis who were standing right there listening. They were treating these tax collectors and sinners just like the older brother was with scorn and contempt and condemnation and just like the father in the story, Jesus was standing there pleading with those rabbis to switch sides, to have some compassion for people, to come on in and join the party, how sad is it that so few of those rabbis ever agreed to do so? Now, that's as far as the story goes, the passage for today, but we want to stop now and we want to ask our most important question. And so whether it prints William or whether you're on the internet or whether you're loud or whether you're here at Tyson's, we want to all get into this and you know the most important question. It's not, so what's up with that? Put that away, and you know what it is. All right, so here we go now. Ready, one, two, three. Oh, yes. You say, all right, Lon, so what? See, I get the story. I do, I understand the point, but honestly, I really don't see that all this has much to do with me. Well, let's see if we can help with that. You know, we said a few moments ago that the older brother looked great on the outside. He was law abiding and loyal and obedient, but that on the inside, something was terribly missing. So let's ask the question, what exactly was the older brother missing on the inside? And well, I think we can answer that with a single word. The word, of course, is compassion. Let's define compassion. Compassion comes from a Latin word, compacio, which means to suffer along with someone. I love one definition of compassion that I heard, which says, and I quote, compassion is the ability to identify with another person's needs and react in a caring way, just like Mova on did for little Jason Leader. And you know what's interesting is that when we read the New Testament over and over, we find the same sentence. This is the sentence it says, and Jesus had compassion on him, on her, on them. The Bible tells us that our God is a God of intense compassion, that every time we pour our heart out to him in pain, he listens to every word, and he feels every tear, every pain, every heartache we suffer, moves the heart of God. This is why 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 7 says, cast all of your cares upon him, upon God. Watch, why? Because he cares for you. Folks, if you're here and you've never trusted the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior, I'm here to tell you that among the things you get when you do are eternal life, yes, forgiveness of sins, yes, took it into heaven, yes, a transformed earthly life, yes, but another great thing you get is a connection with the living God of the universe, where suddenly every pain, every tear, every heartache that you suffer touches the very heart of Almighty God. He's there to respond and to help. Hey, if you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, I can't figure out why anybody wouldn't do it. In light of all that the Lord Jesus Christ gives us when we do, I hope you'll think about that. You say, yeah, but long. I'm already a follower of Jesus. I already understand this. I already know that God is not like the older brother in the story, that he's like the father in the story, and I'm excited about that, and I'm happy about that, and that's great, but I mean, what difference does it make to me? Well, folks, listen, the Bible doesn't stop with simply telling us that God is a person of deep compassion. The Bible goes on to tell us that as followers of Jesus Christ, he wants us to be the same kind of people to those who are around us, to have compassion for them, to ask people, how are you, and really care about the answer? This is what Colossians 3.12 says. Therefore, as God's chosen people, the Bible says, clothe yourselves with, and there's a list of qualities, but the very first one on the list is compassion. Ephesians 4.32, be kind and compassionate. There's our word to one another. Forgiving one another, just as in Christ, God, forgave you. Proverbs 31, verse 8, "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are afflicted, defend the poor and the needy." Folks, this is why Corey Tenboom hid Jewish people from the Nazis, and this is why Mother Teresa gave her life for poor children in India, and this is why, here at McLean Bible Church, we serve children with disabilities and why we're building Jill's house. This is why we have a free food pantry and a free clothing ministry and a benevolence fund from which every year we give away tens of thousands of dollars, confidentially, to people in need. This is why we do turkey outreach and why we have angel tree, and this is why we have the house down in Anacostia and why we have daybreak in the projects of North East Washington. Why? Look here, because, because when people claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, it is clear in the Bible that God calls on us to be people of compassion, to be helpers of the helpless, to be defenders of the weak, to be friends of those in need, and to do it all in Jesus' name so that he gets the glory and the credit. You say, "All right, Lon, I see that." But I got a question, and my question is, you know, I'm not a real compassionate person. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm just nod. I tend to be very much concerned about myself and very much focused on my own things. And, you know, so my question is, if God wants me to be a person of compassion, how do I get to be this way? I mean, how do I develop more tenderness towards people in need and more compassion towards hurting people and weak people? I mean, is there a course here at McLean Bible Church I can sign up for? Is there a seminar I can attend and get this way? Is there a pill I can take? Is there a book I can read or do I just pray and ask God to drop like compassion, wiffle dust or something on me? I mean, how do I get there? I don't understand how God can make me that kind of person. Well, that's a great question. And the Bible gives us an answer, but I'm not sure you're gonna like it. Second Corinthians chapter one, verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion who comforts us in all our, what's the next word, say it, troubles, yeah. That we may learn how to comfort others who are in trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. What is God telling us here, folks? He's telling us that the way he produces in us, compassion for others is by sending, verse three, trouble into our life, suffering into our life, difficulties into our life. Why? Because as one friend of mine used to say, suffering burns out shallowness. Suffering teaches us how to connect with people in pain, how to connect with people who are weak and needy and helpless because in our troubles, we've been weak and needy and helpless. Suffering teaches us things about compassion that we cannot learn from a college class or a seminar or a Bible study or a sermon. Suffering teaches us things about compassion that can only be learned through the doorway of pain and heartache and disappointment and failure to put it another way suffering is what God uses to remove from us, as the Bible says, our heart of stone and to give us a heart of flesh. Back in 2002, I had the privilege of being appointed by then-President George W. Bush to serve on the President's Committee for people with intellectual disabilities. That's the name of the committee now. And when I went to the very first meeting of the committee, I was meeting, you know, they were introducing all the other committee members from around the country. And I was really shocked that one of the people there was a fellow named Gene Stallings. I don't know how much you know about Gene Stallings. He had an illustrious career, both playing and coaching football, leading Alabama, the University of Alabama in 1992 to the National Championship in an undefeated season among many other things. And I'd read about him a little bit, but I'd never met him. And he and I became pretty good friends, a really delightful man. But you know, if you go back and you look at Gene Stallings' life, you learn that he was one of the toughest, roughest, most hard-nosed players and later coaches that you ever saw. It was all about winning, it was all about excellence. He had absolutely no tolerance for anybody who wasn't perfect, who wasn't outstanding. But then in 1962, Stallings became the father of a down syndrome little boy named Johnny. Stallings said, and I quote, "Those first 10 years were hard ones. A bottle could take hours. Potty training took five years. We learned to rejoice in the smallest of victories like the time Johnny took his first steps at age three and a half while holding on to the family dog." Now here comes the really intriguing part of the story. Stallings continues and I quote, "All of this struggle and pain began to change my personal and professional attitudes. All of a sudden, I began to develop a whole lot more tolerance for the less gifted. If a kid wasn't big or strong enough but gave his all, I let him stay on the team anyway to do what he could." In 1997, Gene Stallings retired from football to begin the Stallings Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which ministers to hundreds of children just like Johnny every single day. By the way, Johnny passed away last year, August the 2nd, 2008, from heart failure. So here's the question, my friends. How, how did God transform Gene Stallings from an intolerant, hard-nosed perfectionist into a soft and compassionate man of God and man of grace? Well, the answer-- you know the answer-- God gave him Johnny and God made him suffer and God made him hurt and God made him bleed on the inside. In an interview on Focus on the Family, not long after Johnny's death, Stallings said, and I quote, "The thing that I thought was the absolute worst thing that ever happened to me when he was born turned out to be the best thing. My life wouldn't have been nearly as rich if it hadn't have been for Johnny. The good Lord gave me a blessing in disguise and listened to how he finished his interview. He said, "The truth is, I ended up being a better person as the result of that child." End of quote. Now, look here, friends. There are a lot of us here today who are suffering. There are a lot of us here today who are hurting and in pain. And if you're not, well, just wait, you will be. You will be, because that's the way it works in life. And we don't like the pain that we're going through, frankly. And we want it to stop. And we don't understand why God would possibly be doing this to us. And I'm here to say to you today, listen to me, on behalf of Almighty God, my friend, don't you dare accept a cheap and superficial explanation for your suffering. Get rid of that nayman and claim it, rebuke the devil away theological, baloney nonsense. Don't you listen to your best life now, be a better you, self-help, televangelist, psychobabble. Let me tell you why God has allowed this suffering in your life. Folks look here. It's because God is not Santa Claus. It's because God is not the genie in the lamp that you can rub and get anything you want. It's because God has a higher goal in life than simply giving you and me everything we want. God's goal in life is to transform us into deep, deep men and women of God who can honor him on this earth and who can exalt him on this earth. And there are some areas-- listen to me now-- of Christian growth and maturity, like true compassion for other people. There are some areas of Christian growth and maturity which you and I can never reach except through the doorway of suffering. And that's just the way it is. That's the way it was for Abraham. That's the way it was for Moses. That's the way it was for Ruth. That's the way it was for Esther. That's the way it was for the Apostle Paul. And folks, that's the way it is for you and me. Away with this nonsense, the prosperity gospel, that God always wants us healthy and wealthy and successful and wise, Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says sometimes God wants us sick. I actually thought about writing a book by that title, but I knew I wouldn't sell any copies. So sometimes God wants us to fail. Sometimes God wants us to suffer. Sometimes God wants us to hurt. Sometimes God wants us in deep water. Why? Because it's the only way he can teach us how to be the kind of men and women of God that he needs us to be. So my friend, listen to me, if you're here and you're suffering today and you're in pain today and you're going through deep water in your life today, listen here, look at me. God's grace will be sufficient for you. And God will get you through it. And folks, you'll be a better person on the other side after you've suffered, just like Gene Stalling said he was. Remember what Gene said? He said the thing that I thought was the absolute worst thing that ever happened to me turned out to be the best thing. Folks, listen now. God knows exactly what he's doing in your life. If you will just trust him with your suffering, if you'll trust him, he promises you that one day he's going to give you the exact same testimony he gave Gene Stalling's. That what I thought was the worst thing that ever happened to me by the time God took out through using it in my life, I wouldn't want to go back and do it again. But by the time God took out through with it in my life, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me because I'm a better person. Trust God with your suffering. And I promise you, you'll be glad that you did. Let's pray together. For Jesus, you know that we are all cowards. We don't like pain. We don't like suffering. And we don't like things going the way that we don't want them to go. But Lord Jesus, you are not the heavenly genie. You are our heavenly father. And as such, you are raising us as your children to be men and women of God. And in that process, the Bible is clear that suffering and pain and heartache and reversals and failure has to be part of the equation to get us there. It always has been, it always will be. And so Lord Jesus, bring hope to our life today. Lord, bring encouragement to our souls today as we look at our suffering, not through the lens of this world, but through the lens of the truth of the Word of God. And teach us, as the Apostle Paul said, to rejoice in our sufferings, not because we like to suffer, but because we understand that Almighty God is going to take that suffering. And He's going to transform it into beauty in our lives. That's your promise. Lord, may that promise bring hope and endurance to our lives today. Thanks that we could sit under the teaching of the eternal Word of God, change our lives, Lord, because we were here. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what did God's people say? Amen. What did you say? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. You [BLANK_AUDIO]