A Blog Worth Reading and Embracing... (Dr. Davis Participates In A Inter-Denominational Group in Philadelphia, PA that is sharing ways and means for reaching their city with the Gospel). Dr. Davis is Church History Professor Emeritus - Westminster Theological Seminary. A paper he presented to the group included the following...
PRODICAL AND PERFECT – DR. D. CLAIR DAVIS
FRIDAY: FEBRUARY 15, 2019
There were those two brothers, Prodigal and Perfect. When Prodigal came home again, Father threw a big party for him and Perfect was mad. Why should there be a feast for No-Good when there had never been one for Perfect, who always did everything right?
How do you feel about that, doesn’t it make sense? Jesus told that story (Luke 15), also ones about lost coin and lost sheep, since those Perfect Pharisees were bent out of shape because he was welcoming and eating with people who weren’t respectable like they were. We all think about that, don’t we? What makes me special? What’s my identity?
As I grew up in my very respectable Iowa town, I heard this one a lot: ‘I know I’m not perfect but at least I don’t.’ What that means is really, what do I need God for? especially his forgiveness? Just for the frosting on my already almost perfect me? How much loving forgiveness do you need, do you believe? ‘As compared to other people,’ that’s what Perfect brother was thinking—when you compare yourself with others, does that help you think more clearly? Or does it really mess up your head and heart?
There’s that Feast thing. That’s really about God, when we want to know just what it is that makes God so happy that he throws a major party? We can learn from Nehemiah 8. God’s people are back in the land and they’re safe again, the wall is up, and God says it’s Feast Time! But part of that feast is hearing his law, and that takes the fun out of it so now they’re just picking at their food. Then God proclaims: ‘Eat the fat! Drink the wine! The Joy of the Lord is your strength!’ Did you hear that? When you party with God, you enjoy a lot more than food, you live it up with God’s Joy!
There’s the choice we have, be the Perfect or Prodigal brother. With Perfect we get our kicks from all the people we can look down on, whereas with Prodigal we feast on God’s own Joy in us.
The biggest issue is: why did Jesus go to the cross? Why did he say three times, ‘let this cup pass?’ Jesus on that terrible cross is totally major, listen hard as he says, ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ That’s bigger than ‘at least I don’t,’ now isn’t it?
To have God Almighty throw you a party, you have to know that God loves sinners and that’s who you are. God-knowledge and self-knowledge, together—now add on, knowing other sinners too, all three are vital. When we pray and work through our Father’s plan for our city, we must learn to love those people needier and weaker than we are. Otherwise we’ll trim God and his salvation down to our own miserable size, won’t we?
Now hear together his Holy Word: ‘You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:6-8).
What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one.”
Romans 9:22-25. “I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people.”
Romans 9:1-3 - ‘While we were still sinners;’ ‘my loved one who is not my loved one;’ ‘I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people.’
We hear our God as we echo his own Gospel calling to needy sinners, just like us.
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