Prodigality

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and promote faith in God. The parable of the prodigal son is discussed, emphasizing the father's unconditional love and acceptance. The father is portrayed as lavish and generous, welcoming both his wayward and obedient sons. The transcription encourages individuals to be like the prodigal father, lavishing love and generosity on others. It also reminds readers of their worth and the Father's love for them. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of His word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to His perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Luke 15.11-32 Verses 11-12 He said, A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, Father, give me my share of your property. So he divided his livelihood between them. In this parable of Jesus, there are two young men and a father. The father is the only one who is truly free. He's free to go against culture. He is free to make a fool of himself. He is free to be shamed and embarrassed. He is free to not be constrained by deservability. He is free to correct, free to advise, and free to leave others with their agency. He is an amazing figure. And to one extent or another, all of those things occur to him in this parable. But he isn't who I'm talking about today. He had two sons. The first son valued nothing. Not his life, not his brother, not his father, nothing. All he saw were dollar signs and good times. You wonder what it was that got him started. He doesn't appear to have any friends. He seems to be someone on the outside of life, coasting on the fringes, aware of what was going on, but not participating. I say that because he took no friends with him when he left. He didn't consult his brother. He knew what his inheritance was worth and what his rights were going to be once his father died. And when he got in trouble, he remembered how the servants on his father's estate lived. What they ate, not just the jobs they did. He was privileged, but not blind. He was a prisoner of what if. A prisoner of what other people were doing. He could see what they were doing, and he wanted to do it too. He wanted to do it with abandon. No checks and balances, no limits. Everything he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. We know that because he didn't do it in town. He stayed away from where everyone knew him, where maybe he could be intimidated to not have that last drink, not take that girl to his tent, not smoke that special tobacco. He wanted to try everything he saw and not have to worry about conventions or being dragged back to daddy's house or the scornful remarks of those familiar enough with him to feel comfortable in saying it. He also got the benefit of being whomever he wanted. Now we use the internet for anonymity, but back in the day, you had to travel. The out-of-town business person could be anything they wanted to be. Make up any story. Be married. Be not married. Be successful. An athlete. A skilled person. You can make up any story you want. Other than the internet, where a 60-year-old man can be a 14-year-old girl, the closest thing we have to this is Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. All the commercials say so. Claim any claim. Say any story. As long as your accommodations and your clothes fit the myth you're making, it's all good and no one will ever know. People go there all the time to do just that, or they pack their bags for a cruise or a Caribbean vacation where they aim to misbehave. We don't do it near our home because, one, people we know could bust open the myth with an innocent comment or greeting, and, two, our natural inhibitions can hold us back. So we travel. We hide behind online identities. We swipe left and right and meet up with people who don't know us so we can indulge in whatever we want to indulge in and not feel restrained. We want to go to all the places, drink all the drinks, do all the stuff, but not feel bad while we're doing that. And let's face it, it's easier to misbehave when you're not looking into the same faces you see in your workplace or the pew across the way Sunday morning. It's a bit of a pain in the butt for those who want to waver. So society is making a shift. We're seeing a coordinated indoctrination across the board so that we can all go with what feels right to us in the moment and not worry about repercussions. They'll tell you that it is something else. They'll say they just want to make space for themselves in the way that they feel they were made. They want inclusivity so that every single person of every single type can all be exactly the same. But the truth is, they want to do whatever they want without feeling guilty or judged. Want to hear a statement that no one wants to acknowledge? It doesn't matter what you do. You will never feel judged or guilty if it is right in the eyes of the Lord. You may feel pressure from parents and society but it is pressure from the outside and never a niggling anxiety, concern or bad from the inside. Don't believe the lie of internalizing other people's beliefs or values. You will feel bad from the inside when the thing itself is bad in God's eyes. And you will feel bad from the outside when it is a social pressure. However, the Word does talk about blindness and the intentionally wicked being left to a reprobate mind. Romans 1.28 When you want to be lost, He may let you be lost even as He cries over you. Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not fitting. Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1.28-32 That young man took his inheritance money, culturally telling his father that the only value the father had was in his death, and he fled. He took no one, because he had no one to take, and he went to the anti-chairs, to where no one knew his name. There he did the stuff, got the people around him, partied, spent lavishly, denied himself nothing, did so much, that in the end, when he had lost everything, he was only fit for the bottom rung of the social ladders. Beggars were above him on that ladder. He went to the end of the pleasure rainbow, and found worse than ashes, he found pig poop. Lots of it. But when he returned home, his father came to him and accepted him. His father came to him to make it right, not without consequences, he would have no further inheritance, or a place of his own, but without judgment, penalty, name-calling, or smacks on the bottom. Total loving acceptance. He had worth in spite of what he did. He had a space to be cherished and cared for. There was another young man. He did not partake, but he had friends. He worked hard, he did all that was asked of him, he took pride in that, perhaps, and built up a picture of what a son should do. Culture said a lot to him of what that picture was. Honoring his parent, taking care of the estate, making sure that nothing he did marred the reputation of the family. He had no time for his brother, who was a little weird and always watching the party lights around town. He didn't take him aside and give him advice, he didn't take him under his wing, he had no time for that. He was working, always doing the doing things, never straying from that ideal. We know he had friends, and a desire to have a good time, because when his brother came home, he was jealous. He didn't even see the homecoming, because he was out working on his own. Away from even the servants, he had to find one to call over to find out what the deal was. He didn't seem to feel comfortable in going in, maybe daddy was hosting someone, and he wouldn't have wanted to intrude. But then, later, what did he say to his father? Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat that I might celebrate with my friends. Verse 29. Now tell me, why did he never ask? He had friends. He didn't want the fatted calf, he would have been happy with a goat, probably a little one. But he never asked. Never. You think of everything the father does in this parable. Would he have denied the request? No! He was a generous man, who liked to bless. He would not have denied his son. But the son was never asked. The son walked the path of work, obedience, and denial of pleasures. He was as much a slave as his brother, but he was a slave to freedom. The freedom of good living. The freedom of being an obedient son. The freedom of the respect he must have had in town, because he honored the cultural eyes and tees that people loved to dot and cross. They would have pointed to him as he went through town and said, that's a good one. Or, my, his father must be proud. Or, there's a real son. He was so trapped in it, it never occurred to him that he had actual freedom. He wasn't a slave to obedience, to his father's running of his life. His father didn't run his life. The father never took away the agency of either of his sons. There is an appropriate way to party. It doesn't hurt anyone. It does not involve sin. It isn't shameful. It doesn't overindulge. It's appropriate. It's clean. It's enjoyable. Fun. But this son did not ask for that. He was locked into a pattern of waiting. And when he saw his brother honored, that false freedom turned to bitterness. He got jealous. He got petty. And he stood around outside, kicking up dust, grumbling about, she never got a goat. She never got to have a party at home. And look how he always obeyed. Look how hard he worked. Look at what he did. And all the time that he did it. But the father came out to him. Just like he came to his other son. The father didn't wait for either of the kids to come to him. As soon as they were in his vicinity, he went to meet them. To grab hold of them. And bring them to the place where he wanted them to walk. In fellowship with them. Because he wasn't satisfied with them living with or in what they felt they deserved. One son felt he deserved to party. And then he felt that he deserved to be a servant. Not even referenced as a son. The other son felt he deserved to live obediently. And that he only deserved the pleasures of life that his father told him to enjoy. The father wasn't satisfied with either of them or their deserves. Given to extravagant expenditure. Yielding abundantly. Characterized by abundant growth. Abundantly and often extravagantly rich and varied. Expending or bestowing profusely. Marked by profusion or excess. Expended or produced in abundance. Do these definitions come to mind when you think of the word prodigal? Probably not. We've focused much more in modern times on all that abundance, expenditure, extravagance and profusion as wasteful. Foolishly lavish. Something to be feared. That is our meaning of prodigal. So naturally we focus that on the son who fled to Fundsville. The son who went through the trials, the hunger, the near starvation. Who had to drag his butt back from all over where he went to humble himself. But it isn't either son. You see all those definitions? That is the description of the father. The father is the prodigal. He's lavish and he bestows profusely. He doesn't hold back. He gives to both sons all that he has. After one son is foolish, he still bestows lavishly. Out of generosity. Out of a desire to abundantly celebrate the return of that son from the land of the lost. It was an unexpected treatment based on the behavior of the son. It was opposite to how the culture would react normally. The father's behavior was out of type to the norms around him. Nothing was as you would expect it to be. It is a heartwarming thing. He was lavish with the other son too. Forgiving his extravagant frugality. His over-the-top conformance to expected patterns of behavior. He didn't chastise the fit of pique. He reiterated his value. His position in the inheritance. He gave value to the son and the son's work. He became a bridge between the brothers. One that needed to stand the tests of time. He was a remarkable man. Now this parable has many sides and great depth to each and every one of those sides. But today I want you to think not only of the sons but also the father. To think of him as our heavenly father. He knew the proper behavior each son should have been walking in. He knew what they were worth. They didn't, but he did. But he didn't stop them from doing what they wanted or keeping themselves from what they wanted. He didn't remove their agency, which in this case is the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power over their own selves. He lets them make their own choices. He lets them live with the consequences of their choices. Because they at no point come to him for help or change their behavior to enable him to help them. He's ready to welcome them back, not just as those who were back to where they could be, but back to where they were before anything negative happened. Totally wiping away what was wrong and letting them walk in what was right. Our father in heaven loves us so much. He held nothing back from us. Psalm 84.11 He offers us all the good things there are. Psalm 104.28 We are required to be obedient. John 15.10 We're required to be obedient, but we're welcome to ask for things. Not needs, because he meets those, but wants. Philippians 4.19 He welcomes us back when we go wrong, when we are repentant. 1 John 1.9 And he makes it like we never went wrong in the first place. Repentance renews relationship. He is a good father. A prodigal father. And he asks that we also are prodigal. Extravagant with our worship. John 11.55 through chapter 12.11 Lavish in our generosity to others emotionally, as well as physically. You know, finances, needs, time, etc. That's 2 Corinthians 9.6-8 We are to be like Jesus. Jesus was like the Father. Now, if you doubt that, then be like Paul, who was like Jesus, who was like the Father. 1 Corinthians 11.1 But read the word and strengthen your faith to remove the middle man and be like Jesus, who was like his Father. Be lavish with him and be generous with others. Let us be so prosperous we can bless others each and every time the Lord lays it on your heart. We are to do everything he shows us and say everything he tells us. It's how Jesus was. So, put yourself in a mindset of prodigality so that you are ready to do just that. Be a different kind of prodigal. Not the fearful kind. The Father kind. It is so foreign to this world of fear. Just think of the witness of who the Lord can be in any circumstance we find ourselves in. Let his love shine through you. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Galatians 3.27. Dressed to the nines. I'm sure you've heard that before. There's those that believe that it had to do with the nine yards a tailor would use to make a suit. That that's where we got the term. Now, we all agree it means to dress flamboyantly or extravagantly. But there's evidence that the phrase had more to do with doing something amazing. The nine worthies were characters drawn from the pagan and Jewish history and from the Bible. The group was made up of Hector, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus, King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne. These were personifications of all that was noble and heroic to the medieval scholars. Also, classical mythology has given us the nine muses of arts and learning. Cleo, Thalia, Erato, Euterpe, Polyhymenia, Calliope, Terpsichore. I have no idea how to say that. Urania and Melpomene. I don't know how to say that either. Doing something to the nines was doing it over and above the average. But whichever the origin, it is a term that currently means we are dressed well. Like really well. Totally smashing it. Or as the kids recently would say, lit. Now I don't know about you, but my wardrobe does not contain a lot of those outfits. They are not lit. They don't even smolder. They lean against the stove while cooking anyway. Spiritually though, I do not have that problem. I have been given a suit. A suit above all suits. My birthday suit. My day I was born again birthday suit. The righteousness of Jesus. Can you imagine how that looks to the Father as He looks down on me? On you? Can you imagine how proud He is of you? Read this verse and think on that. When you mess up. When you're being a little ugly. Look at these words and think of that suit. Brush off your knees. Kneel before the Father. Repent of the ugly. Learn what course correction you need to do and walk in it. Wear the suit. Not with pride, but with humbleness. In Jesus we are righteous. Not us. In Him we can do all things. Because He does all things in us. We have put on Christ a gift of grace received through faith. Oh, how He loves us. He dresses us far beyond the nines. He dresses us to the throne itself. As we close, remember that you have worth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love and no end to the things about you that He loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you just because you're you. 1 John 4, 9-10 tells us, By this, God's love was revealed in us that God has sent His only-born Son into the world that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin, and it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because He first loved us. He just loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.